


The Ruby Ring

by thankgodforpandas



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Waterloo, have you heard about our lord voltron, some many nat20s, using the word sheath has never been this fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-07-28 17:19:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16246268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankgodforpandas/pseuds/thankgodforpandas
Summary: Five figures instead of four. The Paladins of Voltron, united at last. It has to be worth it.“My name is Shiro,” he says as he kneels next to the galra and retrieves his waterskin, pouring him a cup of water.The galra's fingers come up to his face. Slowly, they peel his mask away, revealing a pale, young, human face—smooth skin and sharp features, the kind of face Shiro would have admired from a distance—but no, not fully human. He can't be. His eyes—it's no color Shiro has ever seen on a human.“I'm Keith,” the galra says as he reaches for the cup.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. All errors are my own. The usual disclaimer applies.

 

The crossbow bolt thunks dully in the wooden post.

The quartermaster's gaze travels from Shiro's hand, still gripping the collar of his coat, to the bolt, stuck in a post of the battlements rather than his neck. There'd been a glint in the forest's shadows, a sliver of moonlight reflecting on something metallic—something that shouldn't be there—and he'd dragged the quartermaster under cover.

A reflex more than a conscious thought.

“Sound the alarm,” Shiro says to the quartermaster's thunderstruck face, and peers over the edge of the wall. The forest is a blank canvas of darkness, underbrush and trees blending into one indecipherable mass of shadows.

Wait.

No, there's something. A shift in the blank shadows. A break in the homogenous mass of darkness that reveals a distinct shape: a humanoid figure and two eyes, round and bright, locked upon him.

What—

The alarm bells ring sharply in the night, growing into an unsynchronized, impossibly loud chaos as the other towers pick up the signal. The quartermaster is watching him, slack-jawed.

“Double the guard. Call back your sentries,” Shiro says and jumps over the parapet.

He lands hard, the weight of his armor heavy on his bones even as he rolls over his shield to absorb the shock. When he looks up, the figure is gone—not gone, fleeing. The pounding of feet against the forest's floor is unmistakable. The cracks of leaves and branches leave a clear trail. Shiro does not hesitate. He runs after them, digging into his pocket to retrieve the bronze coin.

“Olkarion has been attacked,” Shiro says against it, short puffs punctuating his words. “I'll handle it.”

“Be careful,” Allura's voice echoes in his ear after a short delay, her voice faint and slightly distorted by the spell.

Shiro runs.

 

 

One full day later, he's caked in mud and sweat, well past exhaustion, but still a few hours away from lucid dreams.

He might have miscalculated.

Still, his quarry has not broken down, staying two moves ahead of Shiro, pushing north while taking care of masking his tracks, even crafting false trails that made Shiro lose precious time. Soon, whoever Shiro is chasing will reach the river. He's out of time.

Shiro curses softly. Pidge would have had found the tracks with a few muttered words and a trail of gold, but she's not there, and Shiro has to sink to reading trodden leaves and upturned stones.

He glares at them.

The forest sways gently with a faint wind, but the movement seems ominous rather than neutral as if it were mocking Shiro's efforts.

_Give up already._

Shiro squares his shoulders, scouring the edges of trees and the beds of moss one more time.

There—going east, no, north-east. Perhaps.

He takes out the coin from his pocket.

“Still in pursuit,” he mutters against it.

“Understood,” Allura's voice says faintly in his ear. There's a pause. “I could call Pidge back and send her to you.”

Shiro shoves the coin back in his pocket. His quarry has not given up. Neither will he.

 

 

 

Night has long bled into day when Shiro stumbles upon fresh tracks. They're loud compared to the scraps he's collected to make it this far. A few moments crouching on the ground are enough to pick up his quarry's movements: hurried footsteps, one leg dragging against the wet ground, and a body twisting regularly to glance behind them. The disturbed leaves betray urgency. Flight.

Something has changed.

Silently, Shiro unsheathes his weapon, and advances between the trees at a half-run, the bruised moss and broken twigs shining like beacons. He discovers the imprint of a body against the mossy bark of a tree half a league away. The flat of his blade comes away bright with blood as he scraps it gingerly against the tree. Shiro exhales, his armor creaking faintly in the dead silence of the forest. His linen shirt sticks uncomfortably to his chest beneath the breastplate, moist with sweat, and his body seizes with a shiver, half from the cold and exhaustion, half from rising dread.

Something has changed. Nothing good.

He moves forward. It's still early in the day, but the sunlight is weak, filtered by thick layers of branches and leaves. In the dim, almost gloomy light, it takes Shiro's eyes a moment to adjust to the shadows and make out the outline of a figure, prone on the ground.

There must be a sound, perhaps yet another groan from his armor or an exhale, too sharp, too loud—the figure, a mass of dark cloth and shadows, turns towards him. The threadbare, filthy cloak is the first thing Shiro sees. It is wrapped around the figure, revealing only bits and pieces of a dark leather armor. A heavy hood covers the figure’s head, obscuring a face that is smooth and pure black. There are no features, only two unblinking circles of bright light that round on Shiro.

All of this barely registers as Shiro notices the weapon, gripped tightly in the figure's gloved hand: a sword, its blade slightly curved, bristling energy crackling along its edge. On its hilt, a jewel shines faintly with a strange purple glow.

It looks more dangerous than any weapon that Shiro has ever seen.

It declares the figure as a one thing: galra.

Shiro raises his sword and falls back into a defensive position.

Allura had warned them grimly before she had sent her Paladins on separate missions. The galra come in many shapes and sizes. Their cursed race has long bent the laws of nature to their will. Do not expect a certain creature. Recognize them to the magic that imbues their weapons. Dark, born from deals made with creatures better forgotten, tainting their soul and corrupting their body. Allura had looked grim. She'd gripped Shiro's forearm tightly. Do not doubt. Only the ultimate mercy would heal them and bring them peace.

The galra stands slowly, its movements jerky and uncertain, angling his left side away from Shiro. He's already injured, what must be his blood still wet on Shiro's blade.

“Couldn't you just give up?” the galra rasps. A man's voice, but strange, cold and mechanical, rough like the scrap of metal against metal.

Shiro hesitates. Injured men are off limits. He'd sworn this to himself when he took his oath. There's no honor in pulling an already weakened opponent to the ground, not when he can—not when he has a choice. But Allura’s voice echoes in his head.

_Paladins, mercy has no place with the galra._

Shiro's hold on his sword tightens. No room for mercy.

A flock of crows takes flight just as Shiro steps forward, a chaotic swirl of panicked shrieks and dark shapes swirling around them.

“Run!” the galra shouts over the sudden barrier of sound and chaos. He swings around, offering Shiro the unprotected span of his back, head jerking from right to left as he scans the shadows of the forest. He turns back towards and dashes straight towards him.

“ _Run_!” the galra shouts again as Shiro scrambles back a few steps.

The beast surges from the undergrowth, huge and ungodly, and leaps towards the galra's unprotected back where Shiro stood an instant before. It slams him into the ground, heavy jaw snapping on empty air rather than his exposed nape by sheer luck, no, _because the damn beast had been aiming for Shiro's uncovered head._ The beast is tall as a horse but shaped like a bear. Or what Shiro's mind tries to reconcile with a bear. All that make animals living has been stripped away, fur replaced with metal-like skin, fat and muscles stripped to bone and sinew, sharper than glass shards. Bile and blood drip from its open maw, where teeth glint yellow and deadly. Its cheeks are sunken, bone revealed under rotten skin, and instead of eyes, two empty sockets gleam with unnatural purplish red light.

It roars—a cruel, hateful shriek— as it pins the galra to the ground and bites on his shoulder, jaws like a vice, pressing down until the bones break with a sickening crunch. The galra cries out and instinct takes over Shiro. The cool focus of battle washes over him as he slams his shield on the beast's head, hitting and pushing until the beast releases the galra's mangled shoulder and takes a few steps back, disoriented. Shiro drives forward, putting his full strength behind every attack, pushing and pushing without break, but the beast is strong, stronger than anything single creature Shiro has ever fought. It pushes back and soon Shiro falters under the beast's relentless's onslaught, hours and hours of uninterrupted tracking unforgiving. The half-bear half-ghoul chimera sinks its teeth in Shiro's shield until it dents, yanking on it with such violence that Shiro has to release it. Better lose his shield than his arm. It lands with a dull thunk far out of reach.

_Come on,_ Shiro thinks as he grabs his sword with both hands, watching warily as the beast bares its teeth.

The blast of fire and dark energy hits the beast's side, carving a wide gash of bone and rotten flesh as the beast recoils in pain.

“Come on, you piece of shit,” the galra snarls as he comes up behind to Shiro. His hand is outstretched in front of him—his _left_ hand _,_ bloody and almost unresponsive, supported by his right, still gripping the small sword tightly. Dark energy pools in front of his open palm as the symbol on the sword's hilt shines bright purple, then white. Shiro recoils as a new blast of fire shoots brushes past him, the corroding heat of it creeping beneath his armor, biting his skin slightly before it crashes against the beast, finding its already open side, expanding the wound.

The beast roars in pain and fury and charges towards Shiro. No, towards the _galra_.

He doesn't think. He throws himself against the beast as it runs past him, tumbling with it in a mess of limbs and snapping teeth, wrestling with the beast gracelessly until he finally, _finally_ manages to sink his sword through the beast's neck. It falls limply over Shiro's body, its hefty weight pinning him to the ground. The stench of decay and death is overpowering as he waits until the ringing in his ears subsides before he extricates himself from it, rising to his feet shakily. It takes a few try to yank his sword from the mess of sinews and bones, unsettled by the creature's body, even more hideous in stillness than animated by the corrupt magic. There have been no sightings of dark creatures and abominations in the empire for decades. He has to warn Allura. What if there are others? Shiro scans the shadows fruitlessly. If only his team was there— Pidge could scatter the darkness with a few muttered words. Hunk could raise a protective barrier in a breath and offer them time and space to _think_.

But there's not time—

He whirls around, searching for the galra. He has managed to stay upright. Barely. His shaking hands are still raised in front of him, now strained on Shiro, exposing the deep gashes on his left side, where gore and the hint of a rib shine through. His armor is leather: the creature's claws went through it like butter.

No wonder that his hands are shaking as Shiro looks on the extent of his wounds. The question is how he is even still alive.

“Don’t—” a grunt. “Don’t come any closer.”

The galra's face reveals nothing. Hidden under the ragged hood, its round eyes, bright but flat, remain devoid of any emotions, but his voice, the way his body shakes and sways, betray the extent of his injuries.

“If you follow me, I will kill you," the galra warns and he tries to take a step back. He trips on his own feet, falling to the ground like a dead weight, right on his injured side. The pain must knock him right out—he falls and lays still. His swords shimmers slightly before it retracts into a shorter sword, slightly larger than a dagger. The symbol on its hilt goes dull.

Shiro takes a hesitant step forward, retrieving the bronze coin in his pocket. He rubs it between two fingers, scratching at the faint greenish discoloration of the metal.

Allura would be more than pleased by the capture. For years they've searched for proofs of galra activity, going after every, _any_ lead, but always falling short. Shiro had started to believe that the galra had gone extinct, their presence a mere myth to frighten children and maintain order in the empire.

Here is proof, alive and breathing next to Shiro.

Alive for now. Shiro kneels down next to the unconscious galra. His left side is a mess, his shoulder collapsed from the pressure of the bear's jaw. He winces as he lifts the ragged cloak and sees the mangled skin and bone of the galra's abdomen. The wounds are deep—too deep. He'll die soon without healing. If only Hunk were there—but Hunk is not there.

Blood oozes sluggishly from the galra's wounds.

He'll be dead long before he can get his hands on Hunk.

Still, Allura would be pleased at the capture—dead or alive. Shiro's gaze travels from the galra's injuries to his sword, still clutched in his hand. It looks almost harmless now, the symbol on its hilt gone dormant, but Shiro remembers the flash of heat as the blast of fire went past him. Such magic cannot be trusted.

Shiro hesitates, looking back to the cooling corpse of the bear creature.

Show no mercy, Allura would say. And yet—

_He saved my life._

Shiro goes down on his knees, reaching for the galra's wrist.

The world shifts. Afternoon light pours in the sacred hall, illuminating the five pillars of white marble. On each pillar, a glass case rests on a colorful brocade, heavily embroidered with protective spells and holy enchantments. There's Pidge and Hunk, leaning against two pillars, covered in green and gold. There's Lance, one hand supporting his chin. His elbow rests on the blue cloth adorning the far-right pillar.

His team. His family.

There's Shiro himself, standing tall, arms crossed in front of the centerfold pillar, draped in black.

The last pillar is unclaimed, always too stubborn and demanding, guarded by deep, blood-like cloth. A figure approaches, tall and lithe, but shrouded in shadows and uncertainty—Shiro jerks back like he's been punched, the bronze coin falling useless to the ground. His gloved hand lifts up to his chest, scrambling uselessly against the plate of his armor until he catches the medallion. It's still warm from his skin as Shiro puts his palm against the galra's open wounds and calls to Voltron.

 

 

 

It takes long hours for the galra to stir—long enough that Shiro has second-guessed his behavior a thousand times and still ends up with the same decision. That makes it easier. All he has to do is commit. He watches as the galra twitches on the forest's floor, awareness coming to him in stages.

It's difficult to gage. What Shiro thought was the galra's face is some sort of apparatus, a mask unlike anything that he has ever seen.

Shiro takes a deep breath.

“Careful, I could not—” The galra surges to his feet in a blur of motion. His hand flies to the sheath at his waist, snarling as he finds it empty of its blade, which Shiro had carefully taken and hidden away, and instead reaches for his boot and produces a mean-looking dagger, which Shiro hadn't known to look for. There's a blur of motion and the edge of the dagger becomes a real threat against Shiro's throat. “Heal you completely,” Shiro breathes out, fascinated that the galra, instead of falling flat on his face from blood loss and shock, manages to attack. Slowly, despite his instincts that rage against the obvious threat, Shiro puts his hands up.

“Where's my sword?” the galra asks.

“Your weapon will not help you,” Shiro says, fighting for calm. “I must complete the healing. Otherwise, you'll die.”

“You healed me?” the galra says, glancing behind him, searching for his main weapons or for an escape route. His eyes rest a second longer on the corpse of the bear, a few paces behind them.

“Partially” Shiro says patiently. “I could not spare enough strength without risking my own consciousness. Let us rest, at least until tomorrow. I'll have recovered enough by then to heal you fully.”

“Do it now,” the galra hisses. From the corner of his eyes, he sees as the galra's wound slowly oozes with blood, reopened by the sudden, reckless movements.

“I can't,” Shiro says. “Not today, but tomorrow. I promise I can help. I'm—”

“I know who you are,” the garla snarls, surging even closer. The pressure of the blade becomes sharper against his skin, prompting Shiro to wonder if, perhaps, he'd miscalculated. “You're the Black Paladin, servant of Voltron. Am I wrong?”

“You're not wrong,” Shiro says.

“Your empire has hunted my kind for centuries,” the galra spits. “Am I wrong?”

Allura's voice echoes in his mind. _There have been reports in the north. Thefts, deaths, and strange sightings.Galra,_ she had whispered and her voice had never sounded so full of hatred. _Paladins, I want them found. I want them stopped._

“Am I wrong?” the garla asks again, voice like a growl.

“You're not wrong,” Shiro says again.

There's a pause, pregnant with emotions Shiro wished he could somehow decipher on the galra's marble-like face. The pressure from the dagger's edge grows sharper against his throat.

“We were born enemies, but you have saved my life. How could I leave you to die in the woods with such a debt unpaid? I mean you no harm, today or any day,” Shiro adds, helplessly. “I can help.”

“Lies,” the galra spits. “Always and only lies.”

Shiro doesn't see the galra's arm move. His palm smacks against Shiro's forehead, not enough to truly hurt but enough to make the small pouch held hidden in the cradle of his palm explode. It coats Shiro's face with a fine, white powder. Shiro rears back, hand going instinctively to his mouth and nose, trying to protect himself. Uselessly. The scent of the powder is already thick in his throat from his surprised gasp.

Juniper. A hint of sage.

He knows that smell. Coran had taught him this peculiar technique within a month of his training. A welcome alternative to torture, he had joked. Or at least, Shiro thought it a joke at that time.

He looks up as the galra finishes the incantation, hand outstretched in front of him. He speaks the word of power confidently, without the forcefulness of amateurs. The magic surrounds Shiro. It is strong, stronger than Shiro has ever felt, but he has been trained for this, has been taught how to resist, how to _fight_.

Instead, he takes a deep breath—juniper, a good, pleasant smell—and fights his instincts instead. The magic takes over.

Five figures instead of four. The Paladins, united at last. It has to be worth it.

_Please, don't let this be a mistake,_ he thinks, wishing he could touch the holy symbol hidden under his breastplate.

The galra recoils as the spells takes hold. Shiro almost takes a step towards him, to steady him. Instead, he concentrates on the heady, compulsive taste on the tip of tongue, and speaks.

“I am the Black Paladin of Voltron and I was sent north to hunt the empire's enemies and bring them to justice,” he says slowly, careful of every word. “But you have saved my life yesterday when you could have saved yourself instead. For the sake of this debt, stay until I can heal you fully and you are safe. I mean you no harm, today or any day. I only wish to help.”

The words do not ring in the forest, absorbed by the thick canopy, but the spell lets them spread, true and unimpeded.

The galra lets out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.

“Fine. Have it your way.”

He bends to slide the dagger back in his boot, but stumbles on the uneven floor of the forest, betrayed by his weakened body. Gently, Shiro kneels next to him. Beneath the ragged cloak, his chest is heaving. Shiro hears sharp puffs of breath under the apparatus hiding his face.

“My name is Shiro,” he says as he kneels next to the galra and retrieves his waterskin, pouring him a cup of water.

The galra's fingers come up to his face. Slowly, they peel his mask away, revealing a pale, young, _human_ face—smooth skin and sharp features, the kind of face Shiro would have admired from a distance—but no, not fully human. He can't be. His eyes—it's no color Shiro has ever seen on a human.

“I'm Keith,” the galra says as he reaches for the cup.

His voice is rough, somehow rawer with the modulation of his mask, but his movements are even shakier. He almost knocks the cup out of Shiro's hand.

The new image bursts like a blow in Shiro’s mind—the galra, _Keith,_ surging beside him, sparing him a glance and a grin, bright and deadly, even though the blade of his enemy is rushing towards his head. Sparks shoot out as blades meet, glancing off the heavy ruby that adorns Keith's finger—it only lasts a second, not enough to miss the spectacle of Keith gorging on the fresh water. Most of it spills from the corners of his mouth, finding the depths of the cowl around his neck. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, meeting Shiro's gaze head-on.

Hurriedly, Shiro reaches for the waterskin.

“Here, have more,” Shiro says and smiles.

 

 

 

Dusk is close enough that they can't afford to search for a place to set up camp. That's what Shiro consoles himself with. In truth, it's not much of a choice. Keith simply drains Shiro's waterskin and curls down on the ground, his back against the trunk of a large oak. He's asleep within seconds, an arm held protectively against his injury or simply unconscious—his breathing stays labored and the deep frown on his forehead never quite smoothes out.

“Keep watch, Paladin,” he'd only said.

Shiro does, too stunned to protest, and resigns himself to making most of their surroundings to set up a camp. He settles for the strict minimum: safety and water. So he sets up the iron wire around them and activates it with a few muttered words. Then, he goes to the small stream a few paces away—from the map he'd studied at length from the quartermaster's office, it's a tributary of the river that delimitates the empire's border. Shiro is thankful for the water, even if the constant trickling sounds will only make his night watch more difficult. He does not even consider hunting—his ration packs will to suffice—but quickly decides on a fire. Foolish but somehow he can't bring himself to care. Bodies in plate armor fare badly in the cold.

The soft whimpers of pain that punctuate his vigil have nothing to do with it.

Keith does not stir as Shiro builds the fire and settles close to it, wrapping his cloak around himself to ward off the cold. He sits close to Keith's head, sword flat on his knees. He watches the beast's corpse a few paces away. If he stumbled upon it now, he would think the beast has been dead for months and left to rot in the sun and the rain. It reeks.

That bear should have died years ago, but something had kept it alive beyond its natural lifespan.

The plague.

It had been the start of the war. Zarkon and his people sold their souls to prolong their lives. Madness took over them as their bodies grew pale and cold. A single sliver of life remained to animate their bodies, stretched so thin that they knew death was simply an option, and they grew ravenous. They wanted more. They wanted to conquer and so they followed Zarkon to war. The Alteans did the same to defend their way of life and followed Allura's father to their deaths, because it was necessary. It had been good and charitable to end the lives of those who had lost themselves to greed and madness.

So that is what galra are. Shiro looks down to the long decaying corpse of half-dead half-alive beast they've fought. Beside him, Keith shifts and whimpers. His cheeks are flushed red, fever perhaps, infection spreading through his body. He's galra and yet there's no sign of the plague in him.

Shiro doesn't understand.

He reaches for the bronze coin, wishing he could whisper a message to Allura. The wisest person he has ever met, she would know what to do, what to _think_ , while Shiro's thoughts circle uselessly in the confines of his head. But a message is costly. What strength he will lose seeking comfort from his friend will surely be missed in the morning. As only indulgence, he draws the holy symbol from under his armor and clutches against his chest. The heavy diamond, nestled in black iron, is a comforting weight in his hand, even if Voltron remains quiet. No new visions come forth.

At some point during the night, Keith shifts closer to the fire, seeking warmth, and a strand of his hair is disturbed and comes to rest across his forehead like a shadow. Each flicker of the fire brings out a faint red glint to it.

At that point, Shiro also forgets not to stare.

 

 

 

“Hold still.”

He hesitates as he kneels in front of Keith. Blood has dried in thick slabs on his skin around the wound that reopened the previous day. Still, there's more muscles and raw-looking skin that sticky blood and gore. A good sign. They spam under his palm as Shiro slowly applies his hand where the wound was the deepest.

The spell does not require direct touch, but it's always helped Shiro visualize the damage and channel the healing energy. This type of magic does not come easy to him. It never has. He watched many of his soldiers die before he'd mastered the simplest cantrips to cure a runny nose. The old masters had always discouraged his efforts to learn, saying that his talent laid in combat and destruction. Hunk had been the only who'd nodded in understanding and sat with him until he could heal a paper cut, then a shallow knife wound, then a broken bone. Shiro had never relented, despite his obvious lack of talent in this area, and devoted sweat and time until he could stabilize the direst of wounds. Still, he doesn't keep track of the number of people he's helped live, knowing that it could never sum up to the number of those he'd watched die, those he'd killed. He focuses on the memory of Hunk's encouragements as he concentrates on what remains to be healed: broken ribs, dangerously close to puncturing a kidney, the shoulder, still deeply broken and out of alignment, and finally paper-thin skin that would break and fester at the slightest opportunity.

It might be more than Shiro is able to fix, but Shiro is not one to break his word.

Sweat breaks on his forehead as the flesh below his palm rearranges, snapped bones moving to their rightful places, knitting themselves back into order. Slowly, impossibly, the skin below his palm strengthen until there's nothing but a smooth, strong, _healthy_ body beneath his fingers.

“Here,” Shiro breathes out and bows his head, panting. A drop of sweat lands on the back of his hand. Beneath it, Keith's stomach rises and falls quietly with each breath.

Keith jerks to his feet, leaving Shiro kneeling on the dirt, struggling to catch his breath. His holy symbol burns against his chest, still radiating with the spent energy, but his hand feels cold.

Keith had drawn a blade from his boot in an instant. He'd been ready for violence in even less. Shiro is the only one who's made an oath. In his present state, Shiro is suddenly, painfully aware that it would be a child's game to cut down the Black Paladin and weaken Allura's hold on the empire.

Their eyes meet.

_Please,_ Shiro does not say.

Keith does not retrieve the dagger from his boot. Instead, he picks up the waterskin and hands it to Shiro. The water brings instant relief, but he sips it slowly, watching as Keith moves around their meager camp. He nearly trips on Shiro's wire, then follows it, making a complete turn around the clearing, trying but failing superbly at maintaining a nonchalant air.

Shiro waits until he has regained control over his breathing before taking pity on him. He dispels the illusion, revealing the crossbow, two daggers, and the strange short sword, resting innocently next to Shiro's own pack.

“You have many tricks,” Keith comments mildly as he grabs his weapons.

“As do you, I suspect,” Shiro says and rises to his full height.

The galra is taller than Shiro first thought now that he's not bowed in pain. He'd been strong when gravely injured. Now—well, Shiro is not a fool.

“Where will you go now?”

Keith does not pause as he adjusts the bulky belt bag he keeps around his waist, fingers resting quickly against each compartment as if to check their contents. Shiro had not thought to take it away from him when he was unconscious, thinking it only held rations. Clearly, he's underestimated him.

Keith's hand comes to rest on the hilt of his short sword. The galra symbol is dormant now, but Shiro remembers its glowing form, dripping magic and menace. As he looks up, Shiro's words hang heavy between them.

_I want them found. I want them stopped._

“Don't you have orders, Paladin?”

He has. They're just not relevant anymore.

Shiro shrugs. “I make my own way.”

Keith snorts, but calmly sets his cloak around his shoulders. Up close, it looks more like a rag than a garment, tattered and musty. Keith almost drowns under his width. It was clearly designed for someone taller and heavier.

“I am no threat to your precious empire.”

Shiro looks at him. The cloak may lend him a harmless, almost destitute air, it may hide the armor and the weapons, the coiled muscles and the ruthless athleticism, the belt full of traps and tricks, but Keith still looks like one of the most dangerous things Shiro has ever seen.

“You attacked the outpost.”

“I did not,” Keith crosses his arms, suddenly looking more like a petulant child than a warrior.

Shiro crosses his arms too. “You tried to put a bolt into the quartermaster's throat.”

“I was aiming for his shoulder,” Keith grinds out. “I just needed to raise the alarm. The pack would not take a chance on an imperial outpost on full alert. And it would have worked too, if you hadn't been there.”

“What pack?” Shiro asks and he doesn't realize he's moved until he feels the rigid plane of Keith's leather vambrace under his hand. “There are more of these beasts?”

Keith looks down at Shiro's hand on his arm.

“That bear was a spawn,” Keith says slowly. “Cruel, corrupted, but mindless. A lone beast could not have made its way alone so far south. There must be pack and someone to lead them.”

The stench of decay rises in his nostrils, the memory of the beast's monstrous physicality suddenly duplicated. One of such abominations almost took him down yesterday, a pack of them could decimate entire settlements that are alone in the wild with little direct protection from the empire.

“I'll come with you.”

“What? No!” Keith snaps, wrenching his arm away. “I can take care of them on my own.”

“You couldn't yesterday.”

“I was injured!” Keith snarls, his eyes blazing with outrage, fists clenched at his sides, and it knocks the breath out of Shiro's lungs.

Shiro was wrong. Keith _is_ the most dangerous thing he has ever seen.

“Well, I wasn't,” Shiro says.

Keith splutters at the abrupt change of tone. “What? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Perhaps you were injured but I wasn't,” Shiro says. “Without you, that beast would have teared me to pieces. Clearly, I can't handle them on my own.”

“This is my prey and my burden,” Keith spits. “Don't interfere.”

“And this is the empire I am sworn to protect,” Shiro says, carefully folding that sliver of information in the back of his brain. “If you think I will let such beasts roam freely and hunt my people—if you think I will watch this threat and do nothing while those in my charge suffer, _think again_.” He sees something shift in Keith's eyes or perhaps the hard line of his lips soften just slightly. He presses his advantage. “You have to trust me.”

“Trust you,” Keith repeats slowly and his gaze drops to Shiro's holy symbol, resting innocently on his chest. “You wear that thing and ask me to trust you?”

Shiro's hand comes up to clutch his medallion. He's right. They've been on opposing sides of a war—of _history_ for far longer than Shiro has been alive. Trust is not an option. At least—not now. He needs time.

“A truce then,” Shiro says. “A truce just between us while we hunt those beasts. Even if there's no trust between us, we have a common goal. Let's put aside our differences until then. Let me help you.”

_Please. I just need a little time—to make you understand what we could be together._

What he's seen must mean something. It must.

“Fine,” Keith grounds out and he turns away abruptly. “But you'd better not slow me down, Paladin.”

Something like hope spreads within his chest. He doesn't dwell on it.

“Just give me a second to get my things,” he calls back. “And call me Shiro.”

Time stretches as Shiro watches the spot where Keith's back has disappeared between the trees.

“He's not going to wait, huh,” Shiro mutters and scrambles to pick up his gear, stuffing his waterskin into his pack half-haphazardly. He stomps twice on the embers of the fire for good measure, then runs after Keith.

 

 

 

Shiro falls into step behind Keith. He left his face uncovered, the strange mask slung over his back next to his crossbow, its round eyes staring unblinkingly at him as they walk.

An hour pass. Then another. Then half a day and Shiro can't bear it any longer.

He clears his throat. “How far are they do you think?”

Keith tenses.

“One day. No more than two,” he mumbles.

That's not good.

“Can we catch up?” Shiro asks and joins Keith's side.

Keith glances at him for the corner of his eye. “Doubting yourself already?”

“I mean—that bear didn't look like it needn't to sleep and eat,” Shiro says patiently. “It didn't even look alive.”

“They're alive,” Keith says. “What has been done to them stretches their life. It makes them almost immortal, but it also makes them hungry and tired. If they don't hunt, they grow mad and their master will lose control of them. That makes them slow enough for us to catch up.”

“Right,” Shiro mutters. “And if we do, how do we kill them?”

“Catch them by surprise. Kill them in one hit,” Keith mutters. “Worked well enough for me in the past.”

Shiro gives him a pointed look.

“The bear doesn't count,” Keith mumbles and looks away.

Shiro looks at him from the corner of his eyes. There's a faint scar running down his cheek that Shiro has not noticed before. His equipment is a mess of scratches and amateurish repair. Threadbare gloves offer some protection to his hands, but his fingertips are bare. His nails are blunt, dirty and chipped.

There's no vision brought by Voltron to explain the wave of protectiveness that rushes over him.

This is him.

The realization makes him slow down and he falls back behind Keith, following his lead wordlessly.

 

 

 

Night creeps upon them, shadows deepening faintly as hours pass. It doesn't make much difference. The cloudy skies had only gifted a faint light during the day. It barely filtered through the dense forest.

Shiro nearly loses Keith twice before he resigns himself and walks closer behind him. Shiro is used to Lance's approach to stealth and tracking: toning down his physicality, forcing calm and quiet upon himself when he's everything but calm and quiet. Lance's good at it. His skills at infiltration have saved them more than once in the past. But it feels fake compared to the way Keith moves through the forest. Keith is—Keith is fascinating to watch. There's no conscious thought to be quiet. He's simply fully aware of his body, controlled at every step. No movement wasted. Every muscle coiled and perfectly mastered. Whereas Lance forces himself to be unseen, Keith simply is. This is not a skill you learn on a whim. This is something you build over years and years of careful practice. Shiro had thought him small and dainty when he'd first seen him. It's all an illusion, his dark clothes blending into the shadows seamlessly, masking the strength and height of his body. He's lithe and strong, built for speed and ruthlessness. A deadly combination.

Shiro is not sure he'd win in a straight-up fight.

This is not a thought he entertains often.

He keeps close as they advance through the forest. In the night, the forest blends into a single mass of dark and shadows, nothing that Shiro is able to decipher, but Keith does not hesitate, making his way forcefully between the trees. They walk and walk until Shiro catches a glimpse of the moon, half-obscured by clouds, but high in the sky, and he realizes that Keith means to keep on tracking and pushing and pushing—they can't go on like that.

“Wait,” Shiro calls. “Keith, wait!”

Shiro jogs until he's caught up with Keith, finding no other way than to block Keith's advance with his body. “That's enough for today. We need to rest.”

“Why?”

There are deep shadows under Keith's eyes, like bruises, made only more prominent by the wan tint of his skin. He looks just a step away from collapsing. Shiro probably looks no better. His thighs are straining under the weight of his armor, sweat pooling at the base of his spine. That healing spell took too much out of him.

“Come on. Be reasonable.”

That's the wrong thing to say. Keith's eyes narrow to thin, angry slits. “You're wasting my time, Paladin. We increase their chances to make victims if—”

“Yes, _us,_ ” Shiro snaps. “We'll be the victims. What do you think will happen if we push forward and have to confront them delirious with lack of sleep?” Shiro pauses and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You said it yourself. They need food and rest. So do we.”

Keith raises his chin, a defiant smirk on his lips, but his eyes are guarded—no wonder he wears a mask. His eyes reveal everything. “Who knew the Black of Voltron would be so weak?”

His eyes might reveal everything, but still—his words sting.

“I know my limits. I know when to stop,” Shiro says, trying but failing to ignore the bait. “If you don't, then you will listen to me.”

Another wrong thing to say. The smirk disappears, Keith's lips pressing into a fine, angry line.

“I will?” he says. It sounds like a threat and it is—Keith becomes a blur of movement as he rushes towards Shiro to slam he small pouch of juniper against Shiro’s face. It hurts—half of the crushed juniper extract gets into his mouth, its bitter taste coating his tongue. He feels the rest up on his nose and dry on his skin.

“Was that really necessary?” Shiro says. He coughs and spits on the ground, trying to dislodge the gritty taste of juniper from his throat. He used to like the smell of it—but now he has a hunch that he'll never be able to enjoy it ever again.

“Is this a trick? Why would you want to stop?” Keith asks, as he scans the dark silent shadows of the forest. “Have you called backup while I could not see?”

Keith is like a wild animal, ready for betrayal and violence. What kind of life must he have had to end up like this. It must have been— no. It’s not hard to imagine at all. Shiro has lived through of one those.

“There's no trick,” Shiro says, and lets the heaviness of the spell wash over him. His words feel heavy, but they ring true. Shiro has no mind to lie. “I'm tired. I think you are too. It's madness to rush after them weak and exhausted.”

Shiro looks at their surroundings. Nothing less than everything else what they've passed through during the day, nothing more. It will do.

“I'll set up a perimeter to raise an alarm if someone—or something—approaches,” Shiro says. “Take the first watch and decide what you want to do.” He pauses: Keith is quiet, eyes fixed on Shiro as if he's disappointed him. “What do you want?”

“I—” Keith stutters. “I—don't.”

Shiro's voice turns softer, despite himself. “I've told you yesterday. I mean you no harm, today or any day.”

He leaves it at that. He sets down his pack next to Keith and dives back into the shadows, choosing a sturdy elm tree as starting point, far away that they'll have time to react in the perimeter is breached, close enough that he doesn't waste the thread. It's a subtle trade-off, but this isn't Shiro's first time. He unfurls the iron thread carefully, formed a misshapen circle around the spot where he's left this pack—and hopefully Keith—until he's back to the elm tree. He knots the edges of the thread together carefully, infusing it with words of power until it burns gold and settles back to its murky grey.

_Let none of my enemies pass through,_ he thinks solemnly and goes back to the center of the uneven circle he's formed.

Keith is still there, sitting on the ground, cloak tight around his body. Wordlessly, Shiro sinks down next to him, meticulously ignoring the way Keith is studying his every move. He pulls out a sorry-looking ration from his pack and eats in silence, taking no pleasure from it—dry meat, nuts and fruit, nothing to brag about even if they come from the imperial kitchens—but they sate his hunger, enough to make him strong. He washes it all down with water until there's nothing left to distract him from his heavy bones. He leans back against a tree, dragging his woolen cloak over his body, and closes his eyes. He's half-asleep when Keith speaks up.

“Won't you ask me?”

“Ask you what?” Shiro slurs.

“I could use that spell against myself,” Keith says. “Swear that I will not kill you in your sleep.”

Shiro shrugs, his armor groaning slightly with the movement. “No need. I'll trust your honor.”

He falls asleep immediately. Even if he'd not spent years training his body to sleep despite discomfort, downright pain and terror, his body gives up, too depleted from the endless run and the costly spells. He dreams—perhaps he dreams—of warmth, of home, of something he cannot quite grasp. It's gone too quickly and he jerks awake, brought back to reality with a sharp word from Keith.

_Paladin_.

“Time for my watch?” Shiro grunts and pushes himself upright, his neck a bundle of knots and tension. The little sleep he's had barely assuaged the bone-deep exhaustion. Despite everything—he's only human. He rubs a hand across his face, the shallow dip of the scar across his nose faint under the padding of his gloves.

Keith is already curled down on the ground when he looks up.

He says nothing and rests his head back against the tree as Keith's breathing grows deep and steady. He unsheathes his sword, resting it flat on his lap as his mind goes quiet, searching for the deep meditative state he favors. The world narrows beyond sounds and sensations, the cold air on his cheeks, Keith's rhythmic, calm breathing, the disturbances in the forest, creaks and ruffles and sighs.

He seeks Voltron's presence, but the connection is brittle and evasive. Still, he chases after it.

Answers. He wants answers.

 

 

 

The faint glow of dawn is just a suggestion of warmth against his face when Shiro realizes his mistake. His mind is too sluggish to understand what the voices and the slowly approaching footsteps truly mean. The wire has not triggered. It has no reason to if the ones stepping over it are not his enemies. Shiro jerks forward.

“Keith,” Shiro hisses, reaching for Keith's shoulder. Keith wakes instantly, his hand flying to the dagger at his waist, eyes wide and unfocused. Shiro puts a finger against his own mouth, signaling for silence.

“An imperial patrol,” he whispers, glancing to his right meaningfully. “Let me handle it.”

There's a tense pause between them, punctuated by the unmistakable sounds of the approaching sentries.

“Hide your sword. Act like you're sleeping.”

“I _was_ sleeping,” Keith growls, but he lies back down, dragging his cloak over himself. Shiro looks down at him—a mass of dark rags and angry shadows. No. It would fool no-one. Hastily, Shiro unfastens his cloak and drapes it over Keith.

“What are you doing?” Keith hisses in outrage.

“Let me handle it,” Shiro whispers back.

They're out of time. There are no more sounds: no slow and careful conversation between the sentries, no creaks and thuds that betray movements. They've been seen. Quickly, Shiro extricates his holy symbol from under his breastplate.

“Who goes there?” he says loudly, even as he turns around and faces the direction where the patrol would have last been. “Name yourself in the name of the empire!”

There's a certain quality to the silence in these instants—heavy, filled with a strange static, as if the air carried the promise of thunder and release. Shiro lets himself sink into it, his mind rifling through the possible outcomes until it quietens. Patience yields focus.

“What empire is that?” a voice calls back. It doesn't quite mask the hurried footsteps of the other guard, circling around through the forest to flank him. As their training has taught them. Shiro is pleased.

“The empire that rules this land. The one I serve,” Shiro says, softer now. They would be close enough to hear him. “The one you guard. Come, show yourself.”

The first guard emerges between two trees, crossbow aimed and ready. Again, as their training has taught them. It's a woman, human, older than Shiro by several decades, her head covered with a scarf that hides her greying hair. She's dressed in a suit of dark leather armor, simple but well-kept, and a thick woolen cloak. It is patently not the imperial uniform. Against protocol, but clever. The pale beige and browns of the official uniform would shine like beacons in these dark woods. Not unlike Shiro's armor, now that it's not hidden under his cloak.

“Your partner, too,” Shiro says, and twists his body slightly, enough to beckon at the unseen figure.

“Name your business here,” she says as she steps forward, and then stops as she takes in his face—a blessing and a curse really, nothing but recognizable. Her gaze drops down to the medallion on his chest. The nose of her crossbow wobbles slightly, then plummets to the ground. She does not let it go, though. Good woman.

“F— Forgive me, Sir— I did not realize,” she stammers and sinks to a knee.

Shiro grabs her arm before she can quite get there. He was expecting it. They always do that.

“No matter,” Shiro says and drags her towards her partner, a young man, who's standing, mouth gaping, his own crossbow limp in his hands. He lowers his voice. “Your strategy was good, I commend you, although you should not have approached me both armed with a crossbow. One with a melee weapon, the other with a range weapon. That is the training.”

The young man—probably the woman's son, he has the same wide mouth and high cheekbones— flushes with embarrassment, eyes flying down to the ground. But his mother is looking at him, lips pursed.

“Forgive me, my Lord Paladin—”

“Call me Shiro.”

“Forgive me, my Lord Paladin Shiro, Sir—” Shiro does wince this time, even though they always do that too—and absurdly, he hopes that Keith is out of earshot— but the woman hesitates, glancing back at the unmoving body of Keith. Half of his face is hidden behind Shiro's cloak. The other half is relaxed, eyes closed in peace. He's doing a good pretense of sleeping. This is not the issue.

Upon an encounter, even friendly, wake all in your party. That too, is training.

“Forgive my companion,” Shiro says. “The road has been long and rest sparse. I could not bear to wake him.”

The woman is still looking at Keith, a faint frown on her face. She's suspicious. A good woman and a good soldier.

“Why—” she hesitates again. “What are you doing—“

“Mother!” the boy hisses, giving her her a meaningful, and she flushes in turn, probably remembering who she's addressing.

“Urgent business for the empire,” Shiro says, using that sleek _,_ nice, _condescending_ tone that never fails to shut down any line of enquiry. He hates it. After all, she's right to be suspicious. He feels already guilty of using it, but for the first time, he presses his advantage. “What news from your patrol?”

The boy stands to attention immediately. Predictable.

“Nothing, Sir,” he says, tone clipped. “No signs of incursion by northerners. All has been quiet on the riverbank.”

The boy cannot be older than twenty and Shiro wonders if he's ever seen any action. He looks eager, almost disappointed to report on peace and stability. The image of the hulking beast, spit dripping from its open maw, bursts into his mind. It would have ripped through the boy and his mother in an instant.

“We've been called back to the Olkarion outpost,” the woman says.

Good. That was Shiro hoped for. They would move away from the border. Away from danger and back to the outpost where this whole mess started.

“Make haste and be on your guard,” Shiro says. A clear dismissal. “Farewell.”

“Sir, if I may—” the boy starts, cheeks burning even redder. Shiro braces himself for whatever he will demand, wishing that Lance were here. He would bask in the attention.

His mother clamps down his attempt with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Won't you ask us why we've been called back?”

Perceptive, too. Damn it.

Shiro decides for truth. Or at least, some version of it. “There have been reports of strange activity in these parts. I would not begrudge your quartermaster to strengthen his outpost.”

“Strange reports—” the woman trails off. She stares at him, the weight of her judgment heavy on him. He wishes he could step to the side and put his body between Keith and her. A useless thought.

“Reports of galra,” she says bluntly.

“Not this again, Mother,” her son groans.

Shiro stares. Common people know nothing of the galra. They think them extinct, relegated to history books and lurid tales. Or so he'd thought.

The woman meets his gaze head-on. “We've heard that—”

“From drunkards and half-mad crones,” her son hisses, grabbing his mother's arm but she swats his hand away.

“We've heard that galra are gathering,” she presses on. “Somewhere, north of the river. They say—they say it's the Blade of Marmora.”

Shiro schools his face carefully. The Blade of Marmora—the elite galra warriors. Ruthless. Lethal. Impossibly dedicated to their people and the galra power. Allura had only spoken about them in half words. She hoped they'd all died during the war. But if this is true—whatever they're hunting now was even more dangerous that expected.

“You've done well to tell me,” Shiro says. “Whatever hides in the shadow, it will not cross the border into the empire. You have my word.”

She inclines a head slightly.

“Be on your guard as well,” she says and her eyes pass over Shiro's shoulder to rest on Keith's still form. Shiro can't help it—he moves to block her line of sight.

“Thank you,” Shiro says and bows slightly. “Farewell.”

He goes back to Keith's side as they leave and sits down next to him. The thick wool of Shiro's cloak rises and falls with Keith's breaths, slow and steady, still feigning sleep.

“They're gone, now,” he says, when enough time has passed.

Keith straightens abruptly, wrenching Shiro's cloak from his shoulders. “This was a mistake,” he says. “She was suspicious. They will talk.”

“She will not talk,” Shiro says even if he knows Keith is right. The woman was not fooled. As soon as they reach the outpost, she will understand.

“Her son will,” Keith snaps. “He'll blabber to his friends about nothing else than his wondrous meeting with the Black Paladin.”

Shiro winces. He has a feeling that this too is true.

“It should have been me talking to them and you useless on the ground,” Keith continues, his knuckles white where his fingers clutch Shiro's cloak.

Shiro shakes his head. Perhaps Keith could go unnoticed in a village and his run errands like any human man, but here, lost in the forest, they would know. His eyes—his eyes would give him away. He's can't forget—despite what Voltron has shown him—Keith is galra.

“They would have known for what you are,” Shiro says, ignoring the way Keith flinches. “You've heard her. Galra are gathering up north.”

“A rumor. You heard _her son._ ”

Shiro snorts. “There haven't been sightings of galra for decades in the empire, but I stumble on a whole pack of them?"

_A whole pack and you_ , Shiro does not say, but he cannot go down this road. He's made his choice.

“What I don't understand is why they would take the risk to go through the empire. The border is well-patrolled. They were bound to draw attention.”

Keith produces a shabby paper from his pack and unfolds it carefully. It's a map of the region, the curve in the river that delimitates the empire from the northern steppes and the thick range of mountains that hugs it unmistakable. But it is in bad shape, crisp with water damage and thin where it's been folded again and again. Worse, it is sparse with details. Shiro had spent long hours studying the region back at the outpost. The quartermaster had given him his own map, thick vellum where townships, defense lines and ruins of buildings built long before the empire had been painstakingly recorded. In comparison, Keith's map looks like a child's drawing.

“The passage through the mountains is difficult to manage at this time of year,” Keith says. “It would be easier to go around, south of the river through the empire, then up again.”

North, north-east, this is the direction they've been following. But that doesn't why would they take the risk of going through the empire and raise the alarm? There's nothing beyond the river than marshlands. Anything but—

“The garrison,” Shiro breathes out and taps his nail against the map. “Here. It's been abandoned for decades. That's probably where they're gathering.”

Keith's eyes are intense as his index traces a line from the spot where a marker for the garrison should be to an approximation of their position. “We should ambush them there. If we know where they're going, we can make sure they don't reach their destination.”

“No, I can't cross the river,” Shiro says and that's only the first flaw of the plan. If the Blade of Marmora is truly gathering at the empire's border, he needs to alert Allura and gather the armies. This is nothing that the two of them can tackle.

The pouch hits him in the face just as he opens his mouth to speak, the taste of juniper bitter on his tongue as he coughs. He looks up, too surprised to be angry as Keith recites the power words.

“What—why? What did I say?”

“You can't cross the river?” Keith deadpans as the spell settles on Shiro's lungs. It is easier this time to relinquish control, perhaps he's getting used to it. Perhaps it's something else as he watches Keith. He looks so indignant, eyes flashing as if he cannot believe Shiro would choose to lie now, and use such a ridiculous lie. He looks young and—

Shiro laughs. “Well, sure, when you say it like that. It's not that I can't, rather that I shouldn't. Or I won't.”

Keith looks puzzled for an instant.

“You could also just ask, buddy,” Shiro sighs. “The empire has a strenuous truce with the northern clans. If a Paladin crosses the border, the truce will be broken. I have no intention to start a war. We'll have to catch up with them before they reach the river. Those north of the river are out of my reach.”

Out of the empire's reach, he means, but the spell does not react.

“See, I'm not lying to you.”

Keith looks away and gently folds the map, tucking it away into his pack. “Then we have to hurry.”

 

 

 

They sink deeper into the forest, further than Shiro has ever been, further than he should probably be. Each step brings them closer to the river. The terrain is sloping downward gently. They can't be further than one or two day's walk from the border.

They stay silent, but tension builds under Shiro's skin. Each step brings him closer to where he can't follow and he sees no signs that they're catching up. Truly, Shiro sees no signs at all that they're following a trail, even if Keith does not hesitate, pushing forward at a brisk walk. Shiro follows him as quietly as he can, but he is not equipped for silence. His armor clunks awkwardly with each step, ringing like a bell in the forest.

Keith snaps around noon. “Do you have to make so much noise?”

“Sorry,” Shiro says, and his armor groans in answer. “Can't help it.”

“Don't you have some kind of trick to be quiet?”

Shiro shrugs. “Pidge does.”

He'd never quite realized how dependent of his fellow paladins he's become. Lance's charisma. Pidge's spells. Hunk's healing. He'd relied on them as if they were his own skills. Still, his fellow paladins are not here. Shiro has made sure of it. The coin is an uncomfortable presence in his pocket, one that he has carefully tried to ignore.

Keith's upper lip curl against his teeth. “Then _take the damn armor off_.”

The memory of gleaming teeth and sharp claws floats before Shiro's eyes. He smiles. “I'll keep it on, thanks.”

“I warned you, Paladin,” Keith snarls. “Don't slow me down.”

Shiro laughs, looking over Keith's shoulder instead of his scowling face, straight into two glowing purplish red eyes.

“Watch out!”

He dives forward and shoves Keith to the side, raising his shield just in time to stop the emaciated shape of a beast to tear through them. His feet dig into the earth with the impact, but the pressure is gone as fast as it came as the beast darts around Shiro with snapping teeth.

A wolf of some kind, sparse spots of matted fur covering its lanky body, but animated by forbidden magic, the skin brittle over its bones, eyes are glowing red. One of the galra spawns.

They've been found.

The wolf is growling, ready to attack, its intelligent eyes hesitating between Keith and him.

“Stay behind me,” Shiro says and draws his sword.

He attacks. It's sloppy and unfocused, but enough to make the wolf rear back for an instant. He pushes forward, seeking the usual weak spots—neck, eyes, and belly—but the wolf is smart and quick, evading the strikes easily. Shiro feels the unholy influence of the galra plague, enhancing its reflexes and endurance. A wood-born creature would have fled or died by now. Not this one—it stands its ground, snarling. Shiro takes a deep breath, forcing all preconceptions from his mind. This is not something he has faced before. This is nothing he knows. He would be a fool to underestimate it. He breathes out, ready to push forward, but a glow catches the corner of his eyes.

Keith's sword. Long and crackling with energy in its activated form.

The purple gleam of it is bright in the low-lit woods. It looks more lethal than Shiro remembers, long and slightly curved. Along its edge, energy is pooling, crackling with destruction and menace. Keith steps toward him, a mass of angry shadows and iridescent sparks. He brings down his weapon in a decisive arc, the burst of energy releasing from the sword in a sharp sound.

The hit is meant for him. A mixture of certainty and disbelief seize him. He's given his trust, despite everything, and he's been betrayed, led deeper into hostile territory and prepped for slaughter. He'd hoped—he'd believed in something good but impossible. Shiro stays caught in that instant, unable to move, as the blast of rippling energy shoots past him to slam into something he cannot see—something that lets out a pitiful whimper.

“Can you handle yours?” Keith shouts with a grim, hungry smile. As he rushes past, he bangs the hilt of his sword once against Shiro's arm. It clangs dully against his armor.

Relief robs him of any retort, but he nods, turning back to the first wolf. It takes him a conscious effort to drown out the sounds of Keith's struggle with the other beast. He wishes that he could turn and observe, remembering the ferocity of Keith's attacks during that first encounter, but he won't get away without a scratch if half of his concentration is taken up by deciphering the sounds of the fight behind him. The wolf he faces is fast, cunning and _strong,_ unnaturally strong, its jaws like iron pliers as it snaps on Shiro's shield and tries to yank it away. The wolf dances away from his sword. Each of Shiro's movement feel sluggish, coming a beat to late to land a hit or raise his shield. The wolf darts under his shield, its claw scraping against his armor in a strident sound. The smell of rotten flesh is sharp in his nostrils. He disengages before the wolf can rip his face off, and he stumbles slightly on the uneven ground as he puts distance between them. Shiro exhales as the wolf circles around him, the glow of its eyes piercing him with pure hatred and madness. Shiro knows that look: kill or be killed. He's seen it on too many faces across him to forget.

_Focus._

Shiro's grip tightens on his sword. Enough played. He attacks with all his strength.

The wolf is not weak. Still, it doesn't stand a chance under the full wrath of a Paladin of Voltron. It dies quickly, snarling under Shiro's sword.

Shiro turns away from it without a second glance, searching for Keith. He's standing over the twitching body of another wolf, holding his left side, precisely where he's been injured already.

No—He runs to Keith.

“You okay?”

Keith grunts and kicks the twitching body of the misshapen beast. It's not quite dead, its jaws snapping weakly. With a clean strike, Keith puts it of its misery.

“Piece of shit nearly got me,” Keith says.

That's a yes.

“Wily bastard went straight for my weak spot,” Keith says, his hand clenches against his side.

“Are there others?” Shiro asks as he scans the surroundings. The forest is at a standstill, there's no immediate danger—at least none that Shiro can see. He'd been caught completely out of guard, distracted by Keith's anger and the way he moved. He'd forgotten the danger. He'd forgotten—like some green boy fresh straight out of training. The thought pierces him like a sword.

Keith shakes his head. “They would have come out already. Wolves hunt together.”

“Then why just these two?” Shiro asks.

“These are weaklings,” Keith says. “They were probably abandoned because they couldn't keep up with the rest of the pack.”

“Weaklings?” Shiro breathes out, and his hand comes up to his armor—that weakling had gone past his guard and left four deep scratches across his torso.

“Good thing I kept the armor on,” he says, pointing to them.

Keith gives him a sharp look. “If you'd removed it, perhaps they wouldn't have found us.”

“I don't think that's why they heard us.”

It's not. They'd been arguing and Shiro was _distracted._ Even now, all he can focus on is the smudge of blood on Keith's cheek—thick and dark, probably not his own.

Like some green boy straight of out of training.

“Whatever you say, Paladin,” Keith says.

_My name's Shiro,_ he wants to retort, like it's a joke, like it's nothing. It's easier to say nothing and he carefully wipes the gore from his blade, putting it back to rest in its sheath with practiced smoothness.

“You've dealt with these things before.”

Keith nods. “A few times. Mostly wolves. They're the easiest to deal with. They're fast but they won't kill you with their first attack.” He pauses, eyes glittering with repressed rage as he scowls at the corpse at their feet.

“What is it?” Shiro prompts.

“I've never seen wolves this strong before. Never in the empire. Never bears,” Keith says.

“Something has changed then,” Shiro interprets.

“I think their master— I think it might be someone important, someone _strong,_ ” Keith says. “To command such beasts, they would have to be.”

This is grim, perhaps more serious than he realized. There's tension in Keith's voice that wasn't there before, even when he'd faced Shiro half-dead.

“Don't worry. We'll get them,” Shiro says and smiles, as he would have done with Pidge, Hunk, or Lance. It doesn't feel forced. It feels right.

But Keith snarls, staring down the wolf Shiro's killed.

“Why are doing this? First, the patrol and now this,” he says, and kicks the second wolf. “Why are you protecting me?”

_Tell him. Here's your chance. Tell him about the ruby ring._

“We have a truce, don't we?” Shiro lies. He knows it's too soon. He remembers the look of distrust on Keith's face as he saw Shiro's medallion. “I need your help to find and kill the spawns.”

“I don't need your protection, Paladin.”

“I know,” Shiro smiles. Of this he has no doubts.

Keith gives him a long last look before he sheathes his sword. “Come on, we need to move.”

 

 

 

The sun has barely set when Allura's voice pings in his ear.

“Your beacon is still off, so I trust you're not lying dead in a ditch somewhere.” Her voice is level, revealing only a hint of worry. “But you've missed three days of reports, Shiro. Three _days._ ” She pauses. “Where are you?”

Shiro swallows. Ahead of him, Keith is wading through the trees. His hood is down. His hair sways with each step. It's longer in the back than Shiro thought it would be. The length of the spell go silent and unused.

“Don't you dare ignore me,” Allura's voice pings again, almost immediately. She sounds angry now, probably to drown the worry. “What's going on?”

“I'm fine,” Shiro whispers back. “It's just—” He should tell her about the galra and the garrison. He should tell her about _Keith_. Instead, his eyes fixes on the amorphous mass of Keith's dark cloak. “Things have changed. I'll explain everything later. Allura, trust me.”

She doesn't respond. That's approval enough for him.

 

 

 

Keith does not protest when Shiro suggests they make up camp. It's late already; the moon is high. They find a small patch in the forest where the branches and leaves are thin, allowing the moonlight to give them enough light to operate. Shiro sets up the perimeter carefully, unwinding the iron wire between trees and the undergrowth, laying it down close to the ground, out of sight. He modifies the path of it a few times before he's satisfied, keeping an eye out for movements between the trees. It would be a perfect time for an attack after all—their guard down as they ready themselves for rest—so when he makes his way back to their meager camp and sees Keith sitting cross-legged in a simple dark shirt, stripped off his ragged cloak and his upper armor, the back of his neck bare, where his hair, still slightly sweaty from their forced walk, has parted to curl over his shoulders, something wild in Shiro triggers.

“What are you doing?” Shiro says sharply. “Don't remove your armor. They could attack at any moment.”

_That is the training,_ Shiro nearly says, but Keith looks up at him over his shoulder, and reality crashes back to Shiro. This is not of one of his soldiers. This is no-one Shiro has authority over.

“You've just set up a perimeter, haven't you?” Keith shrugs. “Anyway, even if I wear it, it won't make much difference.”

The armor piece that covers his chest lies flat on Keith's knees. Next to him, rudimentary tools of leather work are laid out: a hammer, thick thread and metal staples. The chest piece does look battered, already mended in several places, but it's clearly been tended too by an amateur. The stitches are rough and uneven, surrounded with deep scratches that reveal lack of dexterity. The new additions of damages certainly won't help. There are new holes where the bear had bitten on Keith's shoulder, but those are just minor details compared to the gaping hole on the side of the armor, shreds of leather and padding holding on by thin, ragged threads, where the beast had managed to make a hit. Shiro examines the strips of hide, pushing them back into the holes like a puzzle. The vertical stripes are consistent with deep scratches of claws. The wound had been deep and bloody under Shiro's hand when he'd healed Keith. His armor is testimony to what he has endured. Despite himself, his eyes flit to Keith's side. There's nothing left of the linen shirt where the beast's claw hit, only a hole with frayed edges, crusted with dried blood. It reveals the skin of Keith's waist. He must have cleaned himself at some point. There's no blood, only skin, smooth, without a hint of scarring. It is—pale and toned, and when Keith shifts, Shiro sees glimpses of the lithe musculature of his back, the dips and groves of the muscles on his front, disappearing in the bottom half of his armor. It is—not something he should see, and Shiro forces his gaze away.

“It's ruined now,” Keith sighs, still glaring at his chest piece, an angry, slightly betrayed expression on his face.

It is—unwise. Everything about this is unwise.

“I can help,” Shiro says as he drops down next to Keith and beckons for the chest plate.

Silence stretches between them, thick and uncomfortable.

“If you'd like me too,” Shiro adds, and Keith finally gives a small nod.

Shiro balances the armor on his knees as he rummages through his pack, pulling first a small container of mink oil and the tin box of soot. He has not done this in years—really has not thought of doing this in years—so he smears the fat carefully on his hand, then picks up a generous pinch of soot, sprinkling it over his slimy hand where it sticks in a thin, even layer. He arranges the strips of layer into order and gently presses his hand against them and speaks the words of power, his holy symbol warming against his skin as it funnels and strengthens the spell. Before he took the medallion, he had not truly understood where that ability came from. Allura once told him that Voltron's grace had always been with him. That had been a painful, ugly thing to hear, given everything else.

It doesn't take long. He might have struggled when he was younger, but that years ago. Nothing compares now. When Shiro lifts his hands again, the leather has knitted back together. The plate is somewhat uneven, thinner where the claws made the deepest cuts and raw material has been lost—Shiro is no alchemist, he can only fix what he has at his disposal—but as he bends and pulls on the leather, it feels strong enough.

“It will not save you from a trip to the armorer,” he says as he hands back the armor, “but it will protect you until then.”

Keith takes it gingerly, fingers running against the faint claw marks. “You like to put things back together, I see.”

Shiro pauses in the process of wiping his hand. He meets Keith's eyes, the impossible color of them, and something cracks in him, warmth spilling on his cheeks.

“No— I— It's just a trick, the first thing I learned when I joined in the army. It was just easier to repair our equipment on our own rather than beg the stewards—”

He breaks off, stunned, as the words register, a strange sense of vertigo descending on him but it's too late and Keith's eyes widen. “You? A mere foot soldier in the imperial troops?"

“I was not born in the empire,” Shiro grunts. “It was a long time ago.”

There's a pause. Beside him, Keith slowly dons his armor, tightening the laces with care, but his attention is split, stealing glances at Shiro without subtlety. Shiro braces himself—Keith is going to want to know more, and one of his small pouches would be enough to push Shiro's boundaries and he has not thought of that time in years—has not dwelled on that part of his life since Allura found him— he can't—he won't.

“Can you teach me?”

Shiro blinks. This what not he expected. This is—He hesitates too long. Keith's carefully schooled expression breaks apart with his second, then returns to the cold disinterest he has worn over the past days. Hastily, Shiro picks up a small branch from the ground and snaps it cleanly in two.

“Start with this,” he says as he pushes the two halves in Keith's hand.

There's something quiet as he explains the basics of the ritual to Keith, showing him how to apply the mink oil and the soot, speaking the words of power and making Keith repeat them until the shape of them could channel the words—something quiet, something—easy even if Keith is an eager but difficult student, pushing too far, too fast, immediately frustrated when he mutters the power words for the first time, the galra symbol glowing on the hilt of his sword, and the branch remains stubbornly split in two.

“Patience yields focus,” Shiro offers, a habit more than anything, but it seems to help, tension slipping out the stiff line of Keith's shoulders.

He lets Keith have the first watch. There's no discussion, really. He doubts he could convince him to leave his attempts to reform the branch and rest instead. Still, Shiro hopes that Keith will remember to be mindful of their surroundings as he lets sleep take him, lulled by the litany of Keith's low voice, carefully repeating the power words.

He jerks awake as Keith's hand lands on his shoulder, the taste of wood smoke and blood lingering on his tongue. He'd been dreaming, thousand voices that should be long gone echoing in his mind.Their voices. Their screams too.

“My turn?” he asks blearily as he sits up, his body cold and sore.

“I— Yes.” Keith stutters, eyes wide.

No, that's not it. He looks uncertain, caught—A threat? Shiro straightens up, focusing on the surrounding shadows, feeling no threat, no presence, but Keith still looks slightly stunned, clutching—Keith does not fight when Shiro tugs the oak branch from his hand. It is slightly twisted and misshapen, but undeniably back in one piece, still faintly warm.

“That's amazing,” Shiro says, because it is. It took days for Shiro to manage it. He'd been young and untrained, but still. “If you keep exercising, you should be able to work on leather in no time.”

“I will,” Keith mutters.

Silence stretches again between them, uncomfortable. Shiro is weary, exhaustion barely eased by the short rest. He ignores it.

“Rest now,” Shiro says. Anything else would be acknowledging why he's been woken up. “We'll make an early start.”

Keith nods and hands the small containers back. They're dirty, smeared so thoroughly with fat and soot that Shiro can't tell them apart.

“Keep them,” Shiro says. “For your training.”

His hand disappears in the fold of his cloak, tucking the containers in one of the pouches at his belt. When it reappears, it is not empty.

“Go ahead,” Shiro says, “I don't mind.”

Shiro takes a deep breath as Keith crushes the small pouch under his nose, the sharp smell of juniper thick in his throat. It is easier to let go as Keith mutters the words, and the spell settling on his tongue, reining in his control. But Keith says nothing, simply stares at him. Still, Shiro knows what he wants to hear.

“Rest,” Shiro says simply. “No harm will come to you tonight.”

Still, Keith says nothing.

“Would you rather that I swear that I'll always let you sleep away the night unimpeded?”

It breaks the tension.

“Don't make promises you can't keep, Paladin,” Keith finally says and curls down to sleep.

Shiro breathes in the sudden silence, the darkness of the forest oppressive around him, but the wire he set up stays undisturbed, the shadows quiet, if slightly unsettling. Shiro waits until Keith's breathing has gone deep and steady before he takes the coin out of his pocket. He rolls it a few times between his fingers, thinking over what he should tell Allura, before he holds the coin close to his lips, whispering the power words. The slight distortion in air and space alerts him that the spell is active, but the words do not come.

_I have found the red paladin,_ he could say.

Or he could say, _I need backup. Send the others._

But the words do not come. The short window of the spell comes and goes uselessly.

“I'm sorry, Allura” he whispers, putting the coin back in his pocket. He picks the discarded oak branch instead, stroking over the slight bump where it was once severed to occupy his hands. After a while, his gaze flits to Keith, his body curled in the leaves where Shiro's own body has left a faint imprint.

This is more than unwise—this is madness.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Halfway through his watch, restlessness overtakes his cool focus. It's uncharacteristic of him, but the mixture of exhaustion and the slow, soft puffs of Keith's breathing grinds his patience down to nothing. He's painfully aware of the tension in his shoulders, the way the small oak branch bends and creaks in his grip.

He gives up.

He tucks the small oak branch under his breastplate, then retrieves the small whetstone from his pack. His sword slides from its sheath with a faint hiss.

Keith shudders awake.

Shiro stills, his sword halfway out of its sheath, as Keith flays around, trying to reach for his weapon.

“It's just me,” he whispers as Keith's wide eyes settle on him. He turns his palm up, showing the whetstone. “Sorry—Go back to sleep. There are still a couple of hours before we need to move.”

Time stretches before tension bleeds out from Keith. He makes a small huffing sound before he settles back down, dragging his hood over his face. Shiro listens carefully to Keith's breathing as he runs the edge of his sword against the sharpening stone. It's deep and regular.

Fake.

He doesn't mind. He keeps his movements slow and steady, the slide of the stone against the edge of his sword almost soundless. The stone had been a gift from Pidge. Not an innocent one. She'd given Lance feathers in various shades of blue. Hunk had received a set of cutlery, high-grade silver, beautifully engraved. To him, she'd gifted expensive sharpening stones made of the finest quartz that the empire could offer. She'd made her gifts then immediately took back one feather, one fork, and one stone. Shiro had understood only later, when she'd appeared in a flash of golden light to save him from a diplomatic mission that had gone south.

She'd simply needed an anchor.

He pushes and pulls the stone against the blade until it shines in the moonlight. Beside him, the fabricated pace of Keith's breathing turns genuine. Shiro is glad—he needs the little rest they can afford. He rolls the small stone in his palm. What would Pidge gift to Keith? His lips curve into a small smile. Something dangerous probably. Something that explodes.

The thought shakes him.

His hand goes to his holy symbol. The medallion is cold. Whatever he saw seems like a dream.

When the first peak of sunlight peeks between the trees, Shiro gives up again. He reaches for Keith. He needs to know. He needs—he finds Keith's ankle, nestled beneath his black cloak.

There's nothing. Voltron's holy symbol stays limp across his chest.

He'd thought—he'd hoped.

When he looks up, Keith's eyes are open.

“Keith, I—” Shiro stutters. His voice is loud, too loud for the early hour, too loud for the gentle light of dawn and the softness of Keith's eyes. The words are on the tip of his tongue. It would be easy.

_There sh_ _ould be five Paladins. The ruby ring is unclaimed. Come with me, I think it should be you._

Shiro swallows them all up as Keith's gaze drops to Shiro's holy symbol. His entire expression shifts, eyes suddenly guarded and hard, his parted lips pressing into a thin line. Any looseness left from sleep is gone in the space of a heartbeat.

Shiro takes his hand away. “Time to go.”

  


  


  


  


It’s a beautiful day. What light filters through the trees make their leaves shine red and gold. It’s difficult to appreciate the simple beauty of them, especially after they find the first corpse.

A deer.

At least what remains of it. Half of its ribcage is missing. What kind of beasts eat the bones of their prey. How _hungry_ they must have been.

“Good,” Keith mutters as he looks down at the mess. “They’re tiring. We have a chance.”

Shiro had fallen behind Keith naturally. Like the day before. Almost like a habit. Almost like—Shiro almost crashes into him when he suddenly slows down around noon. His pace turns cautious and he leads Shiro into curving detours through the trees. The general direction remains north but they follow a rambling path, as if following the drunken footsteps of some giant.

This is not what a determined march looks like. The master's control over his beasts is slipping.

An hour after that, Keith stops to glare at nothing in particular.

“What should we do?”

Shiro steps to his side. “About?”

“About this,” Keith says, waving his hand over _nothing in particular._

Shiro looks back at the forest helplessly. It offers nothing useful.

“I thought you stayed behind me because you don't trust me—because you won't turn your back on me,” Keith says slowly. “But you just suck at tracking, don’t you?”

Shiro’s laugh surprises them both.

“You have no idea,” Shiro laughs. “ _I hate it._ Usually I have Pidge—”

“Yeah, yeah, your _Paladins_ , I get it,” Keith sneers. “It’s a miracle you managed to keep up with me.”

Shiro has been wondering about that extensively. Keith is a natural. Next to him, Shiro is a lumbering fool. Now they both now it.

He smiles. “You're not as good as you think.”

“Now _that's_ a lie,” Keith says, voice accusatory, but his lips betray him. They curve faintly into a smile. “You can't heal that well. You can't track. You can't be quiet. Tell me, Paladin, is there anything you can do well?”

Shiro should offer some jab back but his throat is clogged with a barrage of words he wishes he could say.

He knows how to fight and protect the ones he loves. He keeps them safe.

He would keep that smile on Keith's face—if Keith would let him.

There must be something on Shiro's face— too intense, too raw. The small smile on Keith's face falls.

He turns away.

“You look for details when you should focus on the big picture,” Keith says. “Let the forest tell you a story. You know how it should be, let it show you how it really is. Then you'll find the details you need.”

Shiro follows Keith's gaze. Trees and bushes among trees and bushes, nothing different from the countless trees and bushes they've passed by over the past days. Shiro will never set foot in another forest once this is all over.

“What do you see?”

“Trees,” Shiro deadpans.

Keith snorts. “At least try.”

Shiro sighs.

The big picture.

He breathes slowly until his eyes lose focus. The forest becomes a blur of browns and greens, small splotches of gold and red shining brightly. It’s nothing special. Wilderness. Chaotic and pure—no. Not completely chaotic. Something has disturbed the apparent chaos. Systematic patterns of disturbed stones indicate the path of many bodies, headed north.

He frowns. “They’re still headed north.”

“Good,” Keith says. “What else?”

Keith steps next to him as Shiro examines his surroundings. It's distracting—the shape of him is sharp in his peripheral vision, impossible to ignore. It takes longer to decipher what the rest of the forest is trying to tell him.

“They split—some of them are moving east.”

Keith nods. “We have a choice. Either we move after the main pack and ignore the small group. Or we do the opposite and risk losing sight of the main group.”

“I don’t understand,” Shiro says. “Why would they split now?”

Keith's expression is grim. “They must have smelled something.”

They share a look. It's no decision at all.

They turn east.

  


  


 

  


  


They stumble on the cabin a few hours later, although cabin might be a generous word to describe the building. The mismatched planks of its walls give it a ramshackle air, like a strong wind would blow it away without any resistance. Still, it looks well cared for. The thatched roof is thick, paler patches of water reeds betraying recent upkeep. There's a single window, small and slightly asymmetric, but a potted plant on the windowsill makes it welcoming. It faces the open meadow, where the bushes and brambles have been carefully weeded out. The ground is well trodden around two tree stumps and a small hearth. The fire is carefully delimited with stones, shale, slate, and granite, creating a lovely pattern of color and texture. An iron tripod is fixed over the fire. A simple construct. Made for cooking.

Shiro finds a pot a few paces away, overturned on the dirt, next to two corpses.

This time, they're not animals.

“Shit,” Keith hisses and slams his fist against a tree. “Shit!”

Shiro kneels next to the mangled bodies. Two balmerans, old and poor judging by what remains of their sagging features and the rough cut of their bloodstained clothing. They have died close to each other, each of them reaching for their partner despite the pain. A couple, spending the rest of their lives in peace and solitude. Shiro tugs on the chain around his neck until he feels the familiar weight of the carved diamond in his hand.

“Forgive me,” he whispers against his palm and bows his head.

He does not close his eyes. Instead, he commits the features of the balmerans to his memory. He'll remember. He'll make them count.

There's a dull sound as Keith falls to his knees next to him.

“We're too late,” he says.

His voice shakes with anger. Shiro wishes he could reach for him.

“I'm sorry,” Shiro says again. To the Balmeran couple. To Keith.

They do not bury them. The ground is hard, thick with roots and stones. It would take time that is too precious. Instead, they gather the broken bodies of the old couple close and lay them down on their simple bedding. The interior of the cabin is bare, almost devoid of any furniture. The blanket that Shiro lays over their joined corpses is spun coarsely. It feels disrespectful somehow—as if they were forsaken and forgotten. Shiro retrieves the stones of the hearth and recreates the pattern of shale, slate, and granite over them.

“Whatever is responsible for this can’t be far,” Shiro says after a long moment of silence. “Let’s move forward.”

  


  


  


  


Whatever killed that couple—their master has lost control over them. There's no clear direction to their movements—west and north mostly, but they get sidetracked. It makes them easy to follow. The remains of small animals litter their tracks. The balmeran couple had been poor with little meat on their bones. Not a fulfilling meal. It makes the edge of Shiro’s vision red with fury.

Keith’s shoulders are ramrod. He’s not said a word since the cabin, but the unforgiving pace he’s set is easy enough to interpret. They tear through the forest at a half-run.

Trees blur into a mass of browns and greens at the corner's of Shiro's vision, darker and darker as the faint glow of the afternoon blends into the night. His armor grows heavier with every step. The metal chafes against the skin of his neck despite the protective padding.

“Wait!” Shiro calls, unsurprised when Keith doesn't answer—doesn't even slow down. He'd blocked Keith's way physically that first day, but it feels different today, tense and ready for explosion. Shiro halts and watches Keith's back. A few more steps and he'll disappear from Shiro's sight. “Please. We need to rest.”

Keith whirls around. “How can you say that?”

Shiro drags a hand over his face. The exhaustion is beyond physical now. “The situation hasn't changed. We need to keep our strength.”

“They've killed! They've murdered that couple, and you say the situation hasn't changed? We could have stopped them!”

“You don't know that,” Shiro says, but it feels weak even to his ears. If they'd been faster—If they hadn't rested—If Shiro had called for backup instead of hoarding hope like a starving child—If Shiro had been faster and _better—_ His hand finds the bronze coin in his pocket, wishing it could bring him a little closer to home and impart just a sliver of Allura's counsel.

“So this is what a Paladin of Voltron does,” Keith says, his tone like acid, and crosses his arms. “Rest and eat, while innocents are being slaughtered?”

The words echo dully in Shiro's mind, flashes of steel and anguish flooding his mind. He leans back against a tree. He's eaten what was given to him, rested when they'd let him, _killed_ when they'd told him.

“Still, they were _balmorans._ Not exactly the prime citizens of your empire. Does that make it more acceptable? I wonder—Would you have cheered if they'd been galra?”

He'd killed regardless of race—humans, balmorans and others he'd been too untravelled to recognize—regardless of sex and age. Anyone that they threw in front of his blade. He'd only wanted to survive. Surviving meant killing and he'd been _good at it._

“You have nothing to say?” Keith barks, pushing forward. “Nothing to say, my Lord Paladin? _Sir_?”

“You're right _,_ ” Shiro says and takes a step closer. “I’ve done terrible things.”

Keith’s eyes widen and he falls back into the defensive crouch that seems to come to him easier than breathing. His body is tense with anticipation, ready for violence. But Shiro has already experienced enough violence to fill up several human lives. He has no intention to fight with a boy who cannot mind his words when he's hurt.

“Give me one of those pouches you love so much.”

“Why?”

Shiro's spine feels like steel as he beckons for the pouch. “So you have no excuses.”

There must be something in Shiro's voice or his posture—Keith retrieves the small linen pouch filled with juniper leaves and chucks it at Shiro.

“Say the words.” His voice comes out rough as if he already had submitted to the spell. He crushes the pouch under his nose, the smell of juniper already too familiar. Keith's hand stretches towards him. His mouth moves with the familiar power words and the magic flows over him with the unforgiving intensity that Shiro has come to associate with Keith. His instincts push against it. Shiro seeks Keith's eyes, full of hatred and anger, and focuses on him until his mind relaxes enough to let the magic take hold. They both release a shaky sigh when it does, the connection an uneasy mixture of familiar and strange.

“I have done all you accuse me of. Kill. Rest while others died,” he says and the spell lets him speak. This is the truth. He knows it. “I was good at it. After all, I was the _champion_.”

Shiro swallows his spit. He tastes bile.

“I don't remember much of that time,” Shiro continues, carefully keeping his eyes on the ground, and the spell groans faintly at the half-lie. He remembers enough: pain and blood, flashes of fear and fear. Nothing good. Nothing he can take back. “At least, I don't remember the faces of those I've killed. Then Allura came. She freed me and gave me purpose. When Voltron finally accepted me—when I could finally pick up the diamond medallion and call it my own, I was glad. I was _proud_.” He looks up, finding Keith's wide eyes. _Sir, my Lord Paladin,_ he'd spat as if Shiro was some privileged Lord, as if Shiro had not bled and wept before he could bear the medallion. “Whoever you think I am. You're wrong.”

The image of corpses of the balmerans flash back into Shiro's mind. He clutches his holy symbol.

“I've been fighting ever since. For the empire. For anyone who might need protection,” Shiro says, his voice distorted by grief and anger. “You're right. The Paladins have hunted galra for centuries. And we'll do so for centuries to come as long as they threaten innocent people. _I will fight for them._ Don't you dare imply that I do not feel for those we've lost. Don't you dare imply that I'm cold to their fate.”

He wants to say more—The spells thrums in his ears, warm and welcoming. Shiro's bites on his tongue.

“You're wrong about Voltron—about the Paladins. That's all,” Shiro says and walks away.

  


  


  


  


The iron wire keeps catching and knotting on itself as Shiro tries to lay it down. He gives up trying to form an even parameter on the fifth try and lays down a haphazard circle of protection around himself—around Keith if he's even still here.

His hand shakes as he pulls the bronze coin to his lips.

“Allura—”

“ _Finally_ ,” her voice echoes almost immediately. “What's going on with you?”

He breathes heavily against the coin, his throat working uselessly. This is a mistake. Her voice brings no comfort.

“Shiro—What's going on? Are you still in pursuit?”

“Yes,” Shiro forces himself to say. “They're galra. Perhaps even the Blade of Marmora.”

There's a pause.

“The others have returned from their missions,” Allura says. “I will send them to you. You can't do this alone.”

 _I'm not alone,_ Shiro almost says. Even if Voltron's silence, even if Keith hates everything he represents, even if the memory of him wearing the ruby seems more like a delusion now, he wants to believe that.

“No—I almost have them,” Shiro says. “Let me handle it.”

He needs more time.

“You must be careful,” Allura says, voice low and grave, after a long pause. “The galra are devious. The Blade of Marmora would be worse. They can't be trusted. Remember what they are. Remember what they've done.”

He knows that. Voltron had been the patron of the galra too. A long time ago. Before the war—before Zarkon's madness and the plague. But Zarkon had turned himself against his god when he'd perverted his gifts, condemning an entire race to a cursed existence—never to die, but never to live fully. The Paladins had fought against him from the start. The Blade of Marmora had emerged from the shadows, a terrible force devoted to Zarkon's madness.

He knows that. And yet.

“Got it.”

Shiro does his best to ignore the guilt as the link between them goes silent. The guilt and the relief.

  


  


  


  


Keith is still here when Shiro makes his way back to whatever center he's set on the perimeter. Shiro sits down gingerly next to him, mulling over what he should say. There's no need. He's barely settled down before Keith pushes a small, dented flask into his hands.

A peace offering.

“You don't have to.”

“Just take it,” Keith snaps.

Shiro takes it. The flask is light and when Shiro peers inside, there's just a hint of liquid swirling around its bottom. He takes a wary sip, expecting the wile taste of bitter root alcohol that soldiers often pass around the campfire. He's had his share when he was young and green on that first mission before everything went to hell, smiling at twig-like boys with shy eyes. He braces himself—but instead of the coarse alcohol, bright notes of honey, undercut with the sharpness of linden flowers, burst on his tongue. His eyelids droop as he tries to assimilate the complex, _glorious_ taste. There must be some enchantment on it because warmth spreads in his body. After days and days of slugging through dirt and darkness, it is the best thing Shiro has ever tasted.

“Keith, this is—”

“I'm sorry,” Keith interrupts gruffly, the words clipped and uncertain. Shiro wonders how often Keith has ever uttered them—from his flustered expression, probably not often at all.

“You were an easy target to blame,” Keith continues, words so strained that Shiro almost tells him to stop, just to spare him. “I've overreacted. I'm sorry—I'm sorry you had to talk about your past,” he hesitates, averting his eyes. “We have a truce. I just—forgot.”

“It's alright,” Shiro says. “But I can't accept this.”

He gives the flask back. Keith twitches, a bundle of pride and defiance—nothing attractive, too abrasive and difficult and yet—yet. Shiro swallows around the dryness of his throat. “You need it more than I do. Keep it for yourself.”

Keith takes it back, looking at him dumbfounded and almost reproachful, then down at the flask, as if it personally betrayed him.

“I've never met anyone like you,” Keith mutters, almost too low to hear and he clutches the small flask between his fingers.

They should rest. He should doze off for a couple of hours—enough to get him through another day of tracking. He leans back on the bark of the tree and tips his head back. He's hurting and exhausted, but above all, he feels—greedy.

“Perhaps we could share,” Shiro suggests, throwing a sideway look and watching as Keith's sour expression transforms—eager and young, looking like sometimes Shiro could watch for the rest of his life.

 _I've never met anyone like you either,_ Shiro thinks, helplessly, and lifts the flask from Keith's hand, bringing it back to his mouth.

  


  


  


 

They take turns for a short nap, just enough to rest their mind. It does nothing for the bone-deep exhaustion. Keith looks like he hasn't slept at all. The shadows under his eyes are more like bruises, the skin of his face gaunt and waxy. Perhaps they should rest more, at least until noon at least, so that Keith can recuperate.

“Let's move,” Keith says just as Shiro opens his mouth to suggest they prolong their rest.

Keith shows no signs he's tired, picking up the trail without hesitation. Shiro matches his fast pace without a word, not quite a run, but too intense to be called a walk. He does not try to talk. Instead, he focuses on the tracks, finding some by himself, those he misses pointed out silently by Keith. He counts half of dozen sets of prints, similar to the ones they'd followed to the cabin.

Around noon, they stumble upon a fox, its red fur stained darker with blood. Keith kneels next to it, poking the remains of the small animal with the edge of his sword.

“Still warm,” Keith says, looking up at Shiro with a sharp grin.

Shiro grins back. “Finally.”

They almost have them. They follow the tracks, pushing the pace almost recklessly. Still, an hour pass, then another, then several without any signs of their quarry. Worry gnaws at Shiro's mind. What if they can't catch up—what if—Keith drops to the ground without any sound and even less warning. Half a second later, he tugs Shiro by the wrist, wincing as Shiro falls down next to him with all the subtlety of a full set of cooking pots.

_That blasted armor._

By some miracle, the beasts do not hear it. There are five of them, three huge bear-like creatures and two smaller ones that could pass as wolves if not for the lack of fur on their bodies and the unnatural glint illuminating their empty eye sockets. They are huddled over a corpse—a deer. Its antlers wobble slightly as the beasts feast on its body. Their gaping maws creak like metal as they rip flesh from their prey. Or from each other, fighting over their share of the spoils.

Shiro's heartbeat quickens.

Time for revenge.

They are distracted by their reward, but Shiro knows not to be overconfident. If they attack now, surprise will only yield them a thin advantage before their numbers overwhelm them.

“We need a diversion,” he whispers close to Keith’s ear.

They should move back and draw them one by one. Two simple illusion spells should be enough to pique the creature's interests.

“We do,” Keith whispers back and his lips curl into a grin.

“Wait!" Shiro hisses but his hand wraps around air, too late to stop as Keith hoists himself up a tree with effortless grace.

“Keith!” Shiro hisses helplessly, but Keith is too far away, leaping from branch to branch, while Shiro is stuck in the dirt. If he moves, his armor will make sure that the beasts know they have company—he knows well enough not to count on luck twice. He could—too late. Times slows as Keith throws himself from a branch, arching towards the pack of beasts. In his hand, his short sword extends into its activated form, the symbol on its hilt glowing bright, as Keith brings it down in a graceful arc.

Shiro ducks just in time. The blast of dark energy grazes the top of his head. The bits of rocks, dirt and gore flying through the air, however, do not, and Shiro has to raise his shield to avoid to be battered with the worst of it. When he looks up, Keith is standing ankle deep in gore, the corpse of the deer flattened into a mess of bone and guts. One of the small wolf-like creature is lying still, belly torn open by the spell. Just one. The rest of them jerk to their feet, two heavily injured, but another two, snarling and ready for blood.

“Keith!”

Keith manages to fend off the first attack, ducking under the swipe of sharp claws and slicing through the exposed throat of another beast as it tries to bite him. But the third beast breaches Keith’s guard. He falls backward, landing heavily onto his back instead of losing half of his throat.

Shiro feels every stone of his armor as he rushes forward. He’s slow, far too slow, and helplessly he watches Keith offer his leg, rather that his belly, to the bite of a beast. Its fangs sink deep, past the leather, finding the soft meat of Keith’s thigh.

“Keith!” Shiro can't help but shout as Keith cries out. The beast's hold on Keith does not relent. It growls as it tries to drag him back. Keith grits his teeth as he seizes one of its dagger, delivering a weak slash across the beast's snout. Enough to make the beast release him, but not enough to make it retreat. The beast simply bares its teeth, bright red with blood, and pounces.

Shiro roars as he barrels down on the beast, sword ramming through its neck inches before it can catch Keith’s throat, pinning it to the ground next to Keith's head. A firm tug is not enough to dislodge his weapon. It remains firmly stuck. He whirls around, arm raised, just as the remaining wolf-like beast throws himself on him. Its teeth sink into his hand, past the leather of his gloves, into the metal of his prosthetic. Shiro pulls it towards him and backhands the wolf with his shield, sending it sprawling to the ground. It gives him enough time to pull his sword free from the mess of dirt, bones and sinews, and he nods sharply to Keith sprawled beneath him, meeting his wide eyes.

_Three down, two to go._

He whirls around to stand in front of Keith, shield raised, assessing the two remaining beasts. The wolf-like one is shaking its head, still stunned from Shiro's blow but the bear is watching him wearily.

Let them come.

Behind him, Keith rises slowly to his feet.

After that, it is easy. Claws and fangs are weak against plate armor. Shiro herds them with his shield, taking the brunt of their aggression, while Keith darts under his reach to deliver precise, deadly slashes. It is over as fast as it began, and they are left panting in the sudden silence.

Keith limps over to him. “Your hand—Are you okay?”

“It's fine.”

“But it bit you,” Keith says and lifts Shiro's hand towards his face. The glove is torn beyond repair, but there are only faint scratches against the metal.

“Huh,” Keith says as he stares down at the metal of Shiro's hand. “Neat.”

“Even handy in that kind of situations,” Shiro can't help saying. Keith snorts—the way his lips curl in a smile, the way his eyes scrunch slightly—impossible to ignore. But it falls apart, other muscles of his face scrunching in pain. Shiro's senses return to him. “Your thigh—”

“Just a sting. Nothing compared to how painful that pun was,” he says drily, but he's curling over, hands clutching his leg. “Ow ow ow.”

Gently, Shiro guides him to the ground. The gashes are deep. Blood pearls thickly through the torn leather, but there's no hint of bone or tendons—the leather armor protected him as best as it could.

“Let me,” Shiro says and brings his holy symbol out, holding it firmly in his left hand as he lays the right one on Keith's thigh, calling on his patron until healing energy tentatively spreads from his hand. It takes more out of him as he expected, the wounds perhaps not deep but vicious. The image of Keith, a cloth haphazardly tied around his leg, already stained red, stumbling and falling—falling and staying down—lodges itself into his mind. He exhales sharply.

So reckless.

“What kind of diversion was that?” Shiro asks finally, still reeling over the memory of Keith's airborne, sword activating in a graceful arc.

Keith laughs, teeth stained red with blood. “The best kind.”

“You're useless in close combat, buddy.”

“I'm the best in close combat,” Keith retorts. “Usually one hit and they stay down though.”

Shiro snorts. “Next time—how about you wait until we can make a plan?”

Keith looks up sharply, eyes wide, as if he'd never quite thought of that course of action, as if he'd never had someone at his back. He nods slightly and Shiro has to look away, focusing on the healing spell, his hand still splayed wide on Keith's thigh.

  


  


  


  


They pile up the corpses and leave them for the birds. Burning them would bring too much attention. They push forward, but the rush of adrenaline from the fight is gone. It leaves only weariness and soreness behind.

It's still a few hours away from sundown, but he's not imagining the way Keith drags his feet slightly.

“Should we—”

“Yeah,” Keith says.

They make up camp. It's strange—almost like routine. Keith takes Shiro's waterskin wordlessly to refill it, while Shiro sets up the perimeter. When he's done, Keith has arranged Shiro's pack next to a tree. A thick elm—exactly the one Shiro would have chosen for another night of uncomfortable sleep and silent vigil.

It's almost—it's strange.

They split rations between them, munching on the dried meat, fruits and nuts without enthusiasm. There's not much left from Shiro's provisions. They won't be able to keep up the pace much longer. He carefully doesn't dwell on that.

“I'll take the first watch,” Shiro says.

Keith nods and pulls the cloak over himself, curling in a tight ball next to Shiro. He's drawn his hood over his face to create a fake sense of darkness.

It's stranger to keep watch in daylight. There are no shadows to loom over him. No ominous sounds, strange creaks and dying creatures' wails or perhaps, his minds rationalizes it all. Light filters all doubt. But somehow, it's worse—like he can barely focus on the essential. Like something is going to jump at them at any moment.

He unsheathes his sword quietly, and settles it on his lap.

It doesn't quite help.

Keith must feel it too. Ten, twenty minutes pass and he does not sleep. There's something forced to the rhythm of his breathing. It doesn't fool him.

Or perhaps—Ah. He'd asked Allura to put an enchantment on his armor to hide his right arm. A simple illusion, enough to make it seem like he's wearing armor on both arms. With the gloves, no-one's the wiser. But no-one that ever saw hints of his prosthetic has not had follow-up questions. His hand clenches into a fist.

“Go ahead. Ask.”

Keith curls over himself slightly. It's barely there. A ruffle of his dark cloak. A shift. To Shiro, it's a full body shudder.

“It's okay—it's only the arm,” Shiro says. “I barely notice it—”

“No—this is not what I wanted to ask.”

Shiro stills.

Keith pulls the hood slightly, exposing his eyes. “You said you weren't born in the empire. Did you ever go back? Don't you have family there?”

His mother had cried, Shiro thinks, when he'd left for the army, but they'd been proud. His father had looked tall, taller than Shiro had ever seen him. They'd waved as he'd walked away.

“Sorry—you don't have to—”

“My parents,” Shiro says. “I think they were happy when I chose to enlist. But I never went back.”

“Why?”

Shiro shrugs. “I don't know—I don't think they would recognize me.”

He stops short, heart beating suddenly painfully under his ribs. He's never said that before.

_I don't think I would recognize them._

_It's been too long._

_They don't know the horrors of this continent. They should live in peace._

That he's said. To Allura. To the other Paladins. Half-truths only.

“You survived,” Keith says. “They would be grateful to know.”

No. They would be horrified. His mother's hands would hover his body. Unrecognizable from the baby she'd once cradled in her arms—battered and transformed into an instrument of war—his whole being, holding on by the grace of the medallion around his neck. Even his father, stoic and strong would not be able to meet his eyes. No—he couldn't bear to show what he's become to his parents.

“It doesn't matter,” Shiro says even if his heart beats painfully. He's made his choice long ago. He can't go back to what he once was. The green boy fresh out of training died the day he was too distracted and was captured. He died in the arena. “I have a family here. Allura gave it to me.”

Leaves crack and crunch as Keith rolls over and turns his back to him.

“You love her?” Keith asks. Shiro doesn't choke on his own spit—but it's a near thing. “Allura—your princess. Do you love her?”

“Of course I do,” Shiro says, half-stunned.

She's given everything to him. Hope. Purpose.

Redemption.

At least some long shot at it.

But this is not what Keith is asking. His cheeks feel warm. Perhaps it is not what Keith is asking—

“Why are you asking?”

There's no answer. Shiro doesn't push, not sure that he'd like the answer—or that he'd be ready for it.

  


  


  


  


He realizes what he's missing halfway through his watch: the taste of juniper on his tongue.

Keith is fast asleep next to him. A wonder.

Surely, Shiro's heartbeat is loud enough to be heard all the way to Altea.

  


  


  


  


They set off in the middle of the night. By mid-morning they find the tracks left by the pack. By mid-afternoon they know they won't catch up with them. They'll reach the river by nightfall. Shiro is out of time.

“We're not gaining on them,” Shiro says as Keith glares down at the half corpse of a deer. The other half lays a few paces away, staring milkily at Shiro. The crows have not yet feasted on its eyes, a good sign. Keith shakes his head as he mechanically inspects the disturbed plants and snapped branches. The pack is still headed north as far as Shiro can tell.

“We're not going to catch them at this rate,” Shiro says. “Not before they reach the river.”

“No,” Keith agrees.

Shiro contemplates the ruined body of the deer, thinking back on each missed opportunity, always a step too late, and Keith, standing over it, eyes bright with rage and frustration, echoing the churn of feelings that Shiro does not let show on his own face. If they cross the river, Keith will pursue them beyond the empire's border, with or without him. A few days ago, Shiro would have watched him go, duty bound to stay in the empire. Now—now he'd rather not face the choice.

“If we cannot catch up to them, then we change strategies,” Shiro says, putting a hand on Keith's shoulder. He does not quite mean to. His hand simply moves.

“What do you suggest?”

“We lure them to us,” Shiro says. “Make us impossible for them to ignore.”

With a blink, the expression in Keith's eyes go from defeated to hungry. He surges slightly against Shiro, offering his open face to Shiro's gaze unconsciously.

“We set up a camp,” he says, lips stretching into a grin. “We light a fire and we feast. We are close enough that they cannot miss the smoke and the smell of roasted meat.”

Those five beasts had made a detour of almost several leagues to prey upon the balmoran couple. They'd been poor, but still, their meager stew had not gone unnoticed. Perhaps they would not resist another opportunity. Perhaps they would be hungry and bloodthirsty enough. It's a gamble. Shiro's last chance.

“Yes,” Shiro says, breath short. Bangs of Keith's hair hand brush against the leather of Shiro's glove and more than anything, Shiro wishes his hand was bare.

“Let's see if their master can contain their thirst,” Keith continues. “They won't be able to resist.”

“Yes,” Shiro says again.

 _Who would be able to resist,_ he thinks and almost does it. It would be easy. His hand itches to cup Keith's neck. His thumb itches to trace Keith's bottom lip, if only to part it slightly and ease the way for his mouth.

Shiro has not asked for much in his lifetime. Perhaps he could have this.

But another blink reveals a new expression in Keith's eyes, not quite reckless, not quite scared.

_Focus._

“Let's head straight for the river,” Shiro says, voice rough. “We'll ambush them on the bank. It's a good defensive position.”

Keith nods.

Hopefully they could reach it by nightfall and the pack would stay close enough. Hopefully the river would be deep and wide enough to afford them some protection during the attack.

Hopefully—

Hopefully Keith would be safe.

Hopefully he would _stay—_

Bile rises in the back of his throat as he forces the thoughts out of his mind.

“We have to hurry,” he says and exhales shakily when he hears Keith's footsteps behind him, following him wordlessly.

  


  


  


  


The river is broad and deep. The current seems sluggish, a tranquil mass of dark blues and muddy greens. Shiro is not fooled. Strong flows hide in its depths, rolling and pulling without mercy. In his armor, he would drown in a heartbeat. Still, it's a beautiful sight, quiet and harmonious. On the opposite side, sharp cliffs of white rock hug the riverbank.

The edge of the empire.

Beside him, Keith watches the opposite bank, eyes burning with purpose. He would cross the river to reach the garrison. Anything to stop that pack—Shiro is sure of it.

He turns back towards the south—towards the south and his home. His hand hovers Keith's arm.

“Let's find some open space where we can lay the trap.”

It takes a second too long for Keith to shift his eyes over to him. Shiro feels it like an entire lifetime.

  


  


  


  


They stumble upon a clearing half a league away. It is smaller than anything Shiro had hoped for. The cramped space will force him to stand uncomfortably close to the rushing river. The current looks stronger, almost agitated, here, building from a narrowing curve in the river's bed. Maneuvering his broad sword will be difficult. On the bright side, the close cover of trees will give Keith's plenty of opportunities to hide.

They can't afford to be picky. The sun is already close to the edge of the horizon. They’ve lost too much time already.

It will do.

There's no time for rest. He's just finished building up a generous fire, when Keith comes up with two rabbits slung over his arm.

“Another of your talents?” Shiro says.

“Don't look so surprised.”

“I'm not,” Shiro smiles and goes to check on the perimeter, an excuse not to watch Keith's deft fingers as he cleans and skins the rabbits.

They'd argued at length on the way to the clearing. Keith had wanted to set up traps and tripwires around them. He had revealed his impressive arsenal to entice him—a terrifying array of fire and shrapnel bombs, most of them _illegal_ in the empire—still, Shiro had refused. Traps would perhaps incapacitate a few of them, but it would alert the rest of their presence and reveal their intent. The element of surprise would grant them survival only if it applied to the entire pack.

Keith had first scoffed when he explained this and then stayed willfully silent as Shiro went through all other options. Shiro had not pushed—rewarded when Keith had proposed his own version of that plan.

A gamble. Reckless.

Shiro had agreed immediately.

Now he walks along the perimeter. There are several circles of iron threads, neatly laid out to give them enough warning. He's meticulous, but the thick smell of cooked meat lures him back to the camp. After days of cold rations, he's already salivating.

The beasts won't stand a chance.

They tear into the rabbits without restraint. It is better than good. Shiro expected blandness, but he has underestimated Keith's resourcefulness—the rabbit is well-seasoned, salt, thyme and sage bringing out the rich flavor of the meat. Shiro might have moaned at the first bite.

Then—then there's nothing to do but wait. They sit side-by-side, the fire warm on their faces. They've built it high, complete overkill for a camp fire, but it's the best way to attract attention. Shiro sweats under the layers of armor and padding. Silence falls upon them, not quite easy, not quite uncomfortable. It sets Shiro's teeth on edge.

He takes out a small whetstone from his pack, and falls into the familiar motions of running the edge of his sword against it until his sword gleams sharply in the firelight. Shiro focuses on the sounds of the blade scrapping against the stone, aware that Keith is watching his hands as he works. He doesn't mind.

“And after?” Keith says.

“Huh?” Shiro grunts, blinking from his meditative state.

“After we kill them—rather if they don't kill us,” Keith says and Shiro pauses in his motions. “After that, what happens?”

“I will go back to Altea,” Shiro says and examines the edge of his sword until he's satisfied of his work. He puts away the whetstone.

Tell him. Now is the time to tell him about the ruby ring. _Tell him._

“You could come with me.”

“To the empire's capital?” Keith snorts, but it feels brittle, forced. “Your princess would take one look at me and put me to death.”

“She wouldn't do that.”

“I am galra. This will never change.”

Shiro nods. “I know.”

Keith looks away. Shiro wishes he had not put away his whetstone, anything to occupy his hands.

“I haven't been honest with you,” Keith says.

Shiro's throat feels tight.

“It's ok,” Shiro says.

It's not.

He hasn't been honest with Keith either. Tell him. _Tell him now._

“No—no, you deserve the truth.” Keith shifts. The edge of his cloak brushes against Shiro's armor. “I've been alone for most of my life. I don't remember my parents at all. All I know is what the druids told me. That my parents left me with them and never came back. That I am galra and should hide it, always.” Keith smiles ruefully. “They were always cold with me. Distant. They were afraid of me, I understand that now.”

He reaches to his side, drawing the curved dagger from its sheath. The symbol catches the light of the fire as Keith turns his blade over in his hands.

“They were good people. They would not hurt a child but—” Keith shrugs. “I was angry and difficult. Growing strong, stronger than they could handle. So they gave me three things: a cloak, a mask, and a blade. And they told me to go.” Keith draws the rags of his cloak closer to his body. “I think the cloak belonged to my father and the mask to my mother. The blade—I think it was meant to be mine only.”

Keith angles the hilt of the blade slightly and it takes a moment for Shiro to understand the gesture, so subtle that Keith could pretend it never happened if Shiro refused. Shiro takes the blade gingerly. It's simple but beautiful and well-balanced, the symbol on its hilt is dormant, but a closer look reveals deep shadows in the strange stone, shifting and twirling like smoke. Almost hypnotic.

“There was a letter with it—hidden in the sheath. I don't think the druids knew. They were probably too scared to touch it,” Keith continues. “If they had known, perhaps they would have been less scared—perhaps they would have understood.” He trails off abruptly, shaking his head. “The letter was from my mother. She told me of my family and I've been on the road since then, looking for them. I've never been this close.”

“Your family?” Shiro asks. He hands it back the dagger.

Keith takes a sharp breath. “I lied when I said I went to the outpost to warn them. I went there to steal their map.”

“But—” Shiro mutters. His mind reels. Keith had saved his _life._ “But the pack—”

Keith snorts. “I had no idea they were there. No wonder that bear almost killed me.”

He's missing something. It doesn't make sense—

“I don't understand. Why the map?”

“The garrison. I needed to know where it was.”

 _We've heard that the galra are gathering. Somewhere, north of the river,_ the woman of the patrol guards had said, face twisted in distrust. Shiro had nodded solemnly when they'd sworn that none of them would cross the border into the empire, willfully ignoring that one of them had been faking sleep beneath Shiro's cloak. He'd known all along.

“I've been trying to find them for years,” Keith says. “The Blade of Marmora. My family.”

Shiro feels hot. He'd thought that Keith has been somehow spared from the gruesome history of his ancestors. He'd thought—he doesn't know what he'd thought.

The Blade of Marmora. The elite galra warriors. Shiro's been such a _fool_.

“It's not what you think,” Keith says, his voice urgent and he sinks to his knees in front of Shiro. “The Blade of Marmora has fought against Zarkon from the start.”

Shiro listens silently as Keith recounts how he gathered pieces of information on the Blade of Marmora—from tracking down recluse old men and women, some galra, some not, then when he exhausted all of their leads, from sneaking into the empire's archives to retrieve long-forgotten accounts of tales most have preferred to ignore. He pauses often. It reveals his uncertainty, but he does not turn his gaze away from Shiro's.

“When Zarkon unleashed the plague on the galra, some fought back. They formed the Blade and _fought back._ Those who survived the war have never stopped fighting him. And now so do their children. So do I,” Keith says. “Shiro, we’re on your side.”

Shiro cannot absorb all of it. So this is why Keith threw himself on the track of the pack. To stop them from reaching his people. His mind reels, but it sticks to just one thing.

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“Why?” Keith lets out a short laugh and finally looks away. His hands make tight fists against his lap. “I know what your empire thinks of us: murderers and slaves to Zarkon's will, enslaving their own people to corrupt magic. And you ask me why I didn't confess the truth of my parentage to you, the Black Paladin, first defender of Voltron against the enemies of the empire?”

Perhaps Keith is right, a few days ago, the Black Paladin of Voltron would not have listened. He had thought much the same, keeping his hopes and the image of a bright ruby ring for himself. But things have changed.

“No,” Shiro stutters. “I don't—”

“You don't believe me,” Keith says bitterly, misinterpreting Shiro's hesitation, and reaches into the side pouch Shiro has become uncomfortably familiar with. Shiro catches Keith's wrist before he can crush the small pouch of juniper leaves under his own nose.

“There's no need,” Shiro says, voice barely a whisper. “I believe you.”

“You— You're—” Keith bites off what he might have said. “Why?”

There's so much he could say, but his body takes the lead. His hand moves to Keith's jaw. Even through the leather, Shiro feels how Keith's heartbeat races. All he knows is the intensity of Keith's eyes, the striking color of them. He should move it, he knows, but his hand is like lead. He should—he should stop before he does something he cannot take back, something _stupid_.

“Keith—” Shiro whispers, his voice strange, rough. The expression shifts on Keith's face, from shaken to determined like he's about to throw himself into danger, hungry like he's seen an opportunity he thought would never come.

Shiro's eyelids slide shut as Keith reaches up to kiss him.

He has not often partaken—too young and unsure when he'd been free, too raw, _impossible_ , when he was not, too focused on his duties after.

An excuse.

He'd held himself back. How could he burden someone else with what he was? What he'd done?

He forgets about it all as Keith licks into his mouth, artless and unrefined. It leaves every nerve in Shiro's body singing, yearning for more. He parts his lips, sinking into Keith, seeking anything, _everything_ that Keith would give him. Keith surges forward and settles over his lap. His hands curl on each side of Shiro’s jaw, tilting his head back so that he can take his mouth again. Deeper. Fuller. Shiro's hands move up blindly, dragging against the smooth leather until they find Keith's waist. He wishes he could feel skin instead of the cool, clammy leather. Keith pulls back slightly, pressing light open-mouthed kisses to the corner of Shiro's mouth, to his chin, to anything he can reach, breath coming in short puffs against Shiro's skin. It is not enough—how can it ever be enough—Shiro's fingers squeeze the leather, tighter and tighter until Keith kisses him again.

It's uncomfortable, the leather of Keith's armor squeaking awkwardly against the metal of Shiro's armor. The stiff steel plates are unforgiving, reducing Shiro's body to his mouth: a single point of heat and sensation.

It's the best he's ever had. Pressure mounts in his body as their mouths meet, warm and slick, again and again in messy, open kisses.

Keith's fingers are trembling against his jaw.

“Wait,” Shiro says. He catches Keith's hands with his, folding them against his chest. Keith's lips are wet, his cheeks flushed. It's all he wants and yet—yet. “I'm sorry—I can't.”

Not like this. Not before Shiro has been honest as well. Not until Keith wears the ruby and claims his place by his side.

Shiro takes a deep breath. “I haven't been honest either.”

Keith pushes himself off Shiro, swaying slightly on his feet. Shiro half-reaches for him, wishing he could tug him back and hug him to his chest, anything to soothe the betrayed, injured look that crosses Keith's face.

“Let me explain—”

The bell-like sound echoes like thunder in his mind as the first iron wire snaps. Dread washes over him.

“They're here,” he says, grabbing his sword and shield and whirls around to face the shadows. “Hide. Remember the plan.”

The first creature bursts from the cover of trees moments after Keith disappears in the shadows. The sight of it forces focus on Shiro, shoving the taste lingering on his lips to the back of his mind. It must have been a boar before the dark magic twisted its form into sometimes sinister. All that remains of its snout are two sharp tusks that gleam like steel. Shiro raises his shield as it runs forward, grunting with the impact of the beast's heavy body. It rears back and Shiro simply follows its momentum, slamming his shield on the beast's head repetitively until it hits the ground. Lying there stunned, it's a child's game to run his sword through its neck, leaving it to bleed out.

He falls back into a defensive stance just as two other beasts surge from the trees. Wolves, not unlike the ones they've already encountered. The memory of one of them biting deep into the flesh of Keith's thigh rises unbidden to the fore of his mind. Anger blooms so bright that he almost rushes towards them, but years of training keep him back.

_Patience yields focus._

He lets them come. Their attack is rough, uncoordinated. As they rush towards him, he takes a calculated step to the side, twisting his body so he can slam his shield into the first beast and send it hurling towards the other. They collapse into a heap of limbs and gnashing teeth. Shiro sprints over the intervening distance and makes a quick work of them before they can recover.

_So far, so good._

The spawns are less dangerous when they do not have the element of surprise — or when he doesn't have to shield someone else. As simple as breathing, his body rearranges and falls into a defensive position, taking a deep breath before the next onslaught.

It doesn't come.

 _I hope you're right, Keith,_ Shiro thinks as the rest of the pack emerges from the shadows, one by one, teeth bared. There are more of them than they thought, fifteen or so, huge and hungry. Shiro distinguishes bears and wolves, boars and hulking figures too distorted and removed from the natural laws that they can only qualify as abominations. They all reach the line of trees, then stop. The stillness of the forest is disturbed by their growls, their teeth snapping, leaves cracking under their heavy paws.

“Show yourself,” Shiro calls out.

A new figure appears, humanoid, tall and muscular, but slowly the moonlight reveals the unnaturalness of his physicality. There's something wrong about his proportions— perhaps in the width of his shoulders or the bulk of his chest. He wears a rough armor that has lost its shine, puckered with dents and deep scratches. Most striking are his features, skin dark, thin and cracked, similar to the bark of a tree, sick and crumbling away. His eyes, two slits across his rugged face, glow almost red, bright with corrupted energy.

Shiro's holy symbol pulses on his chest, and for an instant, the sheer expanse of Voltron's hatred towards the perverters of the natural order is his own, implacable and undying, like the oath Shiro took as he accepted the medallion of the Black Paladin.

“When my beasts smelt fresh meat, I did not expect to find such precious quarry,” the figure says, voice smooth and dry, nothing like his mutated, half-dead body. “What are you doing here, Paladin of Voltron, I wonder.”

A shudder shoots along Shiro's spine. Hearing his patron's name spoken by such a creature—blasphemy.

Shiro adjusts the grip on his sword. “I am free to walk the grounds of the empire. You are not.”

The galra's hand comes up to rest on his chest—a courtly gesture that reminds him uncomfortably of Coran's extravagant mannerisms. He bows slightly. “You misunderstand me. I am thankful that you are. Imagine the glory your death will bring to Sendak, future commander of the galra armies.” A manic grin twists his face. “My rise to power will be swift. Yes, with your death, Zarkon will have no choice but to grant command of the armies.”

 _Zarkon_.

The name rings like a funeral bell, low and terrible. He had not truly believed the dusty books that held half-forgotten accounts, not even when Allura had shared her own memories of the distant war in which her father died.

 _He could be still alive,_ she had whispered that night, hugging her knees to her chest. _He could be hiding in the shadows. Slowly harvesting power. Plotting his return._

He had never truly believed. This is proof.

“You are trespassing on the grounds of the empire,” Shiro says, half out of duty, half out of a feeble attempt to stall. “Lay down your weapon and surrender.”

“Kill him,” Sendak orders, dismissing his words with a careless swipe of his hand. “Leave his face intact—I want him recognizable.”

 _So much for the pleasantries,_ Shiro thinks grimly as the beasts pounce.

They move almost as a single entity, a rushing mass of glistening teeth and bloodlust. There will be no clever application of his skills to throw them off, no fighting his way out of this mess with sword and shield. Sheer number is most often the best guarantee of success. Shiro drops to the ground and raises his shield over his head. All he has to do is brace himself. The pack is on him within moments, claws and teeth scraping against his shield, at his back, searching for the weak points in his armor, reaching for his exposed nape. Shiro grits his teeth as fear rises in the back of mouth, stronger than reason.

 _It will bring you no harm. Trust me,_ Keith had pressed, had practically ordered him, as if he'd feared Shiro would refuse—as if he _dared_ Shiro to refuse him.

Shiro had not refused. He'd agreed. Immediately.

He holds on to that memory.

The ground shakes as Keith lands next to him, releasing his attack. The wave of dark energy washes around Shiro until he's surrounded, almost drowning. He tenses despite himself, fearing the moment it will break its skin and burn it like acid. It does not come. Instead, the magic curls around him, roaring like a forest fire in his ears, pressing down on him with such intensity that he feels his teeth rattle. One by one, the beasts fall off him, either stunned or killed by the sheer violence of the blast.

Shiro catches Keith before he can fall to his knees, wrapping his arm around him. He tucks him under his shield— Keith had warned him that this spell, more powerful than anything he'd ever done, would leave him vulnerable in the immediate afterwards. They judged it a calculated risk— and spares a quick look around him. Half a dozen, maybe more, have survived and are already getting back on their feet, nursing varying degrees of gravity—one bear-like creature seems barely affected, the one next to it is missing half its face, jaw hanging limply against its throat. They hang back. Some instinct of their past selves must have survived their terrible transformation—fear, the strongest of them all.

Shiro should be afraid too. He has seen Allura and Coran command the elements to their whims. He has seen Pidge transport them through portals and bend the laws of physics without blinking. He's no stranger to magic, but rarely he has seen magic bent to kill and wreck destruction quite like this, a barrage of fire and death. Keith would be a formidable enemy, even if he's currently just a dead weight in Shiro's arms, panting softly as he tries to recover.

Standing at the line of the trees, Sendak appears to have reached the same conclusion, his eyes fixed on the top of Keith's head, where it peaks above Shiro's shield.

“Kill them!” Sendak says again. He does not raise his voice, but his tone cracks like a whip, the order irrevocable.

There's an instant of hesitation before the beasts rush forward. This is something he can exploit.

“Can you stand?” Shiro mutters against Keith's hood.

The slight nod is enough. He releases Keith and rushes forward to meet the dark creatures, choosing one of the abominations—a huge half-bear half-monstrosity that hardly flinched at Sendak's order—and takes it head-on, ducking under one of his outstretched limb and finding its exposed flank. He has to brace the pommel of his sword of his shoulder to break the thick, leathery skin. The abomination rears back in pain, and as Shiro hoped, the other beasts recoil at seeing the strongest of their pack blooded.

Their hesitation only gives Shiro's enough space to survive being thrown to the ground— their sheer number is barely manageable. He cannot move quickly enough to avoid yet another lunging wolf-like creature that tries to throw him to the ground. He resorts to using his fists, unable to maneuver his broadsword in such close quarters, and manages to beat the beast's snout bloody just as another scrambles up his back, teeth snapping dangerously loud in his ears.

Its weight disappears as quickly as it appeared, and when Shiro turns, Keith is standing behind him, sword in one hand, still bristling with energy, and a dagger in the other, already dark with blood.

“Let's finish this,” Keith says, voice distorted by his mask.

It feels strange, almost wrong to look at the blank face of metal, but this is useless thinking. Shiro turns back to the fray.

As a team, they're ruthlessly efficient, even more now that Keith is not injured. Instead, he dances around Shiro, exposing himself only when he knows the blow he can deal will be fatal, choosing other times to use Shiro's bulk as cover. They keep advancing only there are only a handful of beasts left, then a couple, then a single wraith-looking wolf that slowly backs away, skeletal tail low between its legs.

Sendak has not moved from the edge of the treeline, content to watch them decimate his minions. As the last surviving beast slowly creeps back, he unhooks the massive mace from his back and brings it down on the quivering wolf, crushing it to the ground in a explosion of black and purple sparks.

Sendak watches them steadily— no, watches _Keith_ steadily as the pitiful whines subside slowly, the eerie, oppressive silence of the forest regaining its dominion over the forest.

“Surrender and the empire will show you mercy,” Shiro says, taking a step forward to break Sendak's line of sight. “If you won't, then meet the empire's justice for your crimes.”

“My crime of being galra, you mean?” Sendak asks, and something shifts in his face, perhaps in the pale imitation of a smile. “Your precious empire knows only one type of justice for the galra and it is death.”

Sendak takes a step to the side. In his hand, the mace lights up, sparks of purple and black crackling around its head.

“I have not forgotten, but have you?” Sendak asks over Shiro's shoulders, glaring at Keith. “You and I are bred from the same stock—”

“We're nothing alike,” Keith snarls but Sendak laughs, his head inclining deliberately towards his mace, then to Keith's sword. There's a striking resemblance in the energy crackling around their weapons. Pulsing and bright. But where the energy rising from Keith's blade is pure and neutral, the one emanating from Sendak's weapon serves only one goal: destruction.

“Keith—”

Shiro tries to warn him to be patient, but Sendak whirls around, swinging his mace, forcing Shiro to take a step back. Somehow it's not enough—when he looks down, the malevolent force originating from the mace's head has extended, scraping against the metal of his shield, melting it with unnatural heat—and the mace's impact resonates with impossible violence, sending tremors throughout his entire body. Pain bursts in Shiro's chest. He disengages hastily.

Keith does not waste the opportunity, hands outstretched in front of him as he sends a blast of dark energy, aiming straight for Sendak's heart. It does not miss. Sendak merely grunts under the blow. He stands his ground, his dark armor showing no wear. Cold dread settles deep in Shiro's belly. That blast alone would have brought down one of the smaller beasts, or at least heavily injured the others. Perhaps—Perhaps, they've miscalculated.

“Our ancestors would weep to see how far you've fallen. Twice betrayer,” Sendak says to Keith. “First to your true ruler when you rebelled against his will. Now to your race as you fight next to a Paladin of Voltron.”

Keith releases two more blasts—one goes wide, hitting a tree that bursts into flames, but the other catches Sendak's head, leaving a deep gash across his forehead, oozing dark, thick blood.

Shiro exhales slowly. So he can be killed. It will simply take something a bit more radical than anticipated.

“I did not believe the rumors—the Blade of Marmora gathering at last— gathering for slaughter. How could they be so foolish? Yet, your presence confirms it,” Sendak says, seemingly unfazed by Keith's attacks. The hilt of Keith's sword glows again, but the blast does not come. “Your kin will be dead, soon. I will start with you.”

He's quick. Far too quick for a creature his size. The mace flies through the air, rushing for Keith's head. But Shiro is quick too. And he's been waiting. He kicks Sendak's in the ribs, sending him stumbling back, and the mace whooshes over Keith's head harmlessly.

Shiro steps forward. His grips shifts on his sword. “Your fight is with me, today.”

“Wait for your turn,” Sendak sneers, but he takes a step back, gaze shifting between Keith and him.

Shiro exhales slowly. This is just another enemy. Another fight. He knows how to win. He knows what he has to do.

“Step aside, Paladin,” Keith says as he comes up to Shiro's shoulders.

“What—”

Keith's blade glows bright against Shiro's breastplate. “Don't interfere.”

The world upends, the air around him bright with dark and purple wisps.

Shiro hits the ground hard. His vision goes white as he curls on himself and gapes soundlessly, all breath gone from his body. His hand creeps to his torso, half-expecting to find it gaping, but the armor is not even singed, and he pushes himself on one elbow. His sword is lying on the ground a few paces away. Behind it, Keith is locked in combat with Sendak, exchanging frantic blows. He loses one step as Shiro watches, then another, overwhelmed by Sendak's brute force.

 _What are you doing,_ Shiro thinks dizzily as he pushes himself up, then even more absurdly. _What did I say about close combat._

Shiro manages to limp to his sword just as Keith loses another step, dancing away from a blow of the mace that would have caved his face in, not far enough to avoid the streams of the malicious energy. Its tendrils latch onto Keith's face, sinking into the smooth material of his mask with a hiss, seeking flesh. Keith scrambles backwards as he rips the mask off. For an instant, Shiro sees the fury of his eyes. Wild. Almost like madness. Almost like terror. It's gone between a breath and the next, as Sendak grabs Keith's throat. Keith's mouth opens silently as his hands scramble against Sendak's grip.

“Trice betrayer, I see,” Sendak says, staring into Keith's face with a sneer, and slams him against the ground. Sendak watches him, his weapon held loosely at his side as Keith crouches on one knee, trying to get away until they're separated by the perfect range for his mace. “Vermin like you should die on their knees. Thank me, half-breed. It ends here.”

Keith braces himself. He has not given up, ready to duck under the blow, to roll away, or to feign an escape. Whatever strategy he's chosen won't matter, because it won't suffice. The mace will fall.

And it does fall, but on the side of Shiro's knee as he pushes Keith behind him. The sound of it is loud and obscene, a wet crunch of bone, flesh and metal that brings bile to the back of his mouth. Still, better focus on the sound than on the pain. Shiro shudders as his vision blinks black and white, barely holding onto his control. He's been trained for this. He's been raised for this, years upon years where he existed only to fight and suffer.

He holds on.

Behind him, Keith says something. Shiro can't quite make it out. He doesn't try. Instead, he looks up at Sendak.

“I bring you his blessing,” he says and leans forward, pushing the flat of his sword against Sendak's armor with his left hand. Between his palm and the steel of his blade, his holy symbol burns hot.

Sendak understands too late. The pillar of radiant energy crashes upon him, even as he tries to move away, pinning him into place like a moth to a flame. It burns for a few seconds, silent but all encompassing, bathing the clearing in pure, iridescent light. As it fades, Sendak stumbles like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Skin hangs in shreds on his face where it hasn't quite burned off, the unnatural light of his eyes dimmer. In his hand, his mace is burnt to a cinder. A mighty weapon reduced to a twig.

“I said,” Shiro pants. “Your fight is with me.”

For the first time, there's fear in Sendak's eyes and he swings his ruined mace desperately towards Shiro. It's stopped by a burst of fire as Keith steps forward, light pooling in front of his outstretched palms. Keith releases another blast, aiming for Sendak's knee, and another and another, a barrage of light, until the galra's armor is pierced as Sendak falls to his knees in front of Shiro.

“You die here today,” Keith says and lets his sword fly.

“Keith, no!” Shiro cries out and Keith's blade stops a breath before it finds Sendak's neck. Their eyes meet. “Please, he's too valuable.”

“You even obey him like a sweet little dog,” Sendak pants, eyes burning with hatred. “What are you hoping for? You know there's no place for you in the empire, don't you? They can never accept you, never—”

Sendak's jaw dislocates beneath Keith's fist with a sickening sound. From his knees, Shiro is rewarded with a good angle to watch Sendak drop like lead to the ground, unconscious. Keith stands over them, sword clutched tightly between his fingers. He's still brimming with violence, the space between them humming with it.

“Keith—”

Keith kicks the ruined mace out of Sendak's limp hand and tilts his face to the sky, releasing a string of curses that drown out any words Shiro might have said.

“I have to go,” Keith says, head still titled towards the sky. “The garrison—I have to go.”

“Wait,” Shiro says and tries to stand, crying out with pain as he puts pressure on his injured leg, and Keith is suddenly here, his arms strong around Shiro, as he guides him to the ground. His fists grip Keith's cloak, pulling on the threadbare cloth until it rips.

“We had a truce, remember?” Keith says and shakes Shiro's grip off. “It ends now.”

“He was lying. You don't understand—the Red Paladin. The _fifth_ —” Shiro tries to say, reaching back for him, but his fingers come short, brushing against the cloth of his cloak, unable to grasp it. Keith is moving away. “ _P_ _lease. Let me explain_ —”

The golden light of a portal bursts in the small clearing, energy spilling in concentric waves as it sends leaves and dirt flying through the air, drowning the rest of Shiro's words.

"Hold on, Shiro!” A voice calls a second before the portal spouts Lance's familiar form, followed closely by Pidge and Hunk. The sight is too strange not to stare as Lance strides forward in his nightshirt, legs bare, like he's only taken the time to done his feathered cap and to grab his crossbow. Hunk hurries after him, he's still pulling on his overcoat—clearly they've been summoned straight out of their beds. Only Pidge is decently dressed, but then, Pidge would never be caught in her bed until forced, always sacrificing sleep over projects, tinkering endlessly in her workshop. She spots him first, throwing herself to him with such momentum that she pins him to the ground, her arms tight around his neck.

“You're ok,” she breathes out against his neck, but Shiro can only lie prone under her— the pain in his leg so sharp—his mind buzzes with white noise. “We came as fast as we could!”

“Your beacon lit up. Of course, to the rescue, we came!” Lance says as he puts his hands on his hips. He peruses his surroundings. “A bit unnecessarily it seems.”

“That explains the beacon,” Hunk says, gesturing vaguely to Shiro's busted knee, wincing slightly. “Man, it looks nasty.”

“Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry,” Pidge mutters, scrambling off of him, as Shiro grits his teeth—never the most graceful, his Pidge, despite all of her talents.

“Phew, it must have been some fight,” Lance says as he looks over the clearing, littered with corpses. “What are those?”

It really was some fight. He doesn’t say it. Instinctively he knows that waiting for the sharp response, the bone-dry comment is useless. It won't come.

“No,” Shiro says, and struggles to sit up, gesturing until Hunk obliges by pulling him up to his feet. It's agony. He ignores it.

He ignores it, but it's far too late.

Keith is gone.

“Where did he go?” Shiro snaps, whirling back towards Pidge.

“Who?”

“There was—” Shiro falters—how to describe him, the man who'd kissed him as if he'd never wanted to kiss anyone before, who'd stood over him, teeth bared, ready for blood, who'd _left_ him, crippled and bleeding on the ground. “There was—There was a galra with me. Can you see where he went?”

“You mean this galra,” Lance says behind Shiro, where he's crouching next to the unconscious body of Sendak.

“Is that a galra?” Pidge exclaims, squinting towards Sendak.

“Pidge, tell me where he went,” Shiro says. “Please.”

There must something in his voice or in his face, because his friends all pause, sharing a look before Pidge waves a hand over the clearing, muttering a few words under her breath. The forest reveals its secrets instantly, footprints shining gold in the obscurity. It feels like stepping on a sea of molten gold, the spell revealing each step taken during their fight and cradling the cooling corpses of the galra spawns in expensive shrouds.

Pidge finds Keith's retreating footsteps first, hurried but straight and steady—he did not look back. They lead straight into the river. On the opposite bank, there are two shining footprints, where Keith is standing, watching them over the current of rushing water.

“No—” Shiro whispers. “Please don't."

Keith turns away. His footsteps leave a thin trail of gold into the shadows of the forests, lost beyond the reach of the empire.

“Should we go after him?” Pidge asks, voice soft.

Shiro stares until the sounds of the river no longer ring like thunder in his ears, but the shadows stay empty, offering their silent verdict. Shiro had not wanted the choice. He need not have worried. Keith chose for him.

“Let him go.”

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T__T
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the rating! It's rated E for a reason and the reason is this chapter! Kids, you've been warned! Also, I've split this chapter into two parts because it was getting too long. Chapter four will conclude this small adventure.

 

 

 

They step out of the portal into the main courtyard of the imperial palace—well, Shiro limps his way through the portal, an arm heavy over Lance's shoulders. Hunk neutralized just enough pain to allow him a dignified entrance. To be truthful, it's only dignified compared to Sendak's entrance, slung over Hunk's shoulder, bound and unconscious.

“I need to find Allura,” Shiro grunts and tries to stand on his own. His knee buckles under him. Lance whimpers faintly as he tries to hold Shiro's weight. Curse his leg, curse everything. “Bring me to her. There's much to discuss.”

They have captured a galra high-ranking officer. Zarkon is alive, with troops, an army, under his command. There's so much new information. It's well past midnight but the capital is still bustling with activity. Faint echoes of music and laughter reach the castle, carried by the warm currents of air coming from the sea. The night is clear, but the stars are obscured by the everglow lanterns scattered throughout the city. Their lights reflect on the high spires of spun crystal and white marble, giving an impression of half-daylight.

After days of muted light and silence, it is almost to much to bear.

Shiro closes his eyes, disoriented.

Allura would not care about the late hour. She would want to know.

A galra commander. Zarkon, alive. The rest does not matter.

The rest cannot matter.

“What you need is to sit down,” Pidge tuts. “Allura can wait.”

“Bring him to his rooms,” Hunk says to Lance. “I'll come by as soon as I drop off our guest down to the dungeons. I'll have you healed up in no time!”

“I don't need—” Shiro begins to say, but Lance is already moving, dragging Shiro with him towards their living quarters.

“I'll bring him to the baths,” Lance calls back. “No offense, Shiro, but you really need one.”

There's no fighting his team when they agree on a set of actions, so Shiro holds his tongue. Besides— Shiro grits his teeth as they go around a corner— his leg is on fire. The sooner he's healed, the sooner he can talk to Allura and they can prepare their next move.

Zarkon.

Zarkon has to be the priority.

The bath chambers are thankfully empty due to the late hour, but they fill up quickly with Lance's incessant chatter, recounting his own little adventure over the past few days, involving brambles, a pot of honey, and—and bees? Lance's words wash over him as he hops to a small bench. His shoulders roll forward, pain pulsing steadily through his body. His head bows against his chest, trying to focus on Lance's chatter rather than the lancing pain. There are clangs of metal as Lance activates the machinery to pump warm water into an empty tub, sharp rattles of drawers and boxes as he gathers towels and soap and lay them down next to the slowly filling bath, wet plops as he mixes healing and relaxing salts into the water. Lance's words, however—his words are like white noise. When Shiro finds the strength to raise his head again, Lance is looking at him expectedly.

Ah, was there a question?

“Anyway, I'll go put on some pants.” Lance says quickly, striking up a pose that does reveal an uncomfortable amount of skin. “Hold on tight, Hunk will be there in no time to fix you up, buddy.”

“I'll be fine.”

Lance goes, stopping uncertainly at the door.

“But if you need help with the armor—” Lance trails off. Not a question, but still hopeful.

“I'll be fine,” Shiro says again and stretches his lips, hoping for a smile.

The door closes behind Lance, and Shiro sighs. Methodically, he removes the pieces of his armor, struggling with his vambrace as the room fills with steam, the faint scent of juniper flowers fill the room up—Shiro looks up, but there's nothing.

Right. The bath salts.

Pressure builds behind Shiro's eyes as he fumbles with the buckles of his breastplate. He'd hoped— what had he hoped for? Nothing sensible. Nothing he could be worthy of. Of course, it would end like this.

The door opens.

“Sorry you had to wait,” Hunk pants slightly. He's probably run the entire way from the dungeons. Hunk is the gentlest of them, striving to spare pain to everyone and everything. “And before you ask, yes, we've put your prisoner in the highest security cell. He won't be able to fart without us knowing about it with all the spells Pidge is weaving there, believe me. How's the pain?”

Shiro looks up from his lap. he'd been clutching his breastplate, knuckles white around the metal. “Nothing I can't endure.”

Hunk hums unhappily as he kneels in front of Shiro. “Let's see what we've got.”

He's gentle as he peels the metal plates off Shiro's injured leg but it leaves Shiro panting and hissing. Without the little support that kept his leg together, the pain is—something else.

“Can't you do it with the armor on?” Shiro hisses as Hunk grabs the piece covering his knee, each little jostle shooting like lightning up his thigh.

“It would hurt more when the bones snap back into places with it on, trust me,” Hunk says, pulling on a buckle that remains firmly stuck, its metal twisted from Sendak's blow. “Sorry— almost done.” Another pull— and Shiro tastes blood, where he has bitten through his cheeks. “Got it!” Hunk says and lifts the last piece of armor, revealing the misshapen shape of his leg.

“Oh man,” Hunk blanches— the largest irony, their most talented healer also the most squeamish in front of blood and mangled bodies— and Shiro would laugh if he did not feel so weak himself.

“Hold on,” Hunk squeaks and brings his right hand to rest on his heart. On his wrist, the polished citrine gem, imbedded in a heavy cuff of gold, glows brightly as slowly healing energy spreads in Shiro's leg, bringing instant relief. His head thunks against the wall behind him, as he closes his eyes, feeling Voltron's benevolent presence as his bones knit back together. Shiro's holy symbol jolts on his chest, echoing Hunk's power.

Was it how Keith felt, when Shiro healed him, lying hands on his stomach, on his thigh, calling on to his patron for his power? Warm and reassuring—or did it feel like an invasion, a violation from a God that had long turned his back on his people?

There are bridges that cannot be crossed. He's known that all his life. He barely can conjure up the image of Keith wearing the ring, the phantom image of it more like a fever dream.

“How does that feel?” Hunk asks after a while as the warmth from his power dissipates.

Shiro blinks, then flexes his leg and stands carefully, gradually shifting weight to his right leg. The pain is gone.

“As good as new,” Shiro says. “Thanks, Hunk.”

He goes to the small cabinet of soaps and salts, and selects a small stone, throwing it into the already steaming bath. Almost immediately, the overpowering smell of sulfur rises in the air—perfect to soothe achy bones.

“Are you okay?” Hunk asks tentatively.

“Just tired,” Shiro lies, wishing he could scrub the smell of juniper from his lungs, bending down to remove the last pieces of armor from his left leg.

Hunk nods. “Let me at least bring your armor to your rooms. You've done enough for today.”

“Thanks, Hunk,” Shiro says again, and watches Hunk leave with his arms full of the scattered pieces of his armor, his body still until the faint clunking of metal can no longer be heard.

No, it doesn't feel as if he's done anything worthy, except from losing his mind.

He removes his prosthetic last, wincing as the odd feeling of severed connections floods his brain. It detaches with a faint sucking sound and Shiro is left standing with a limp limb in his valid hand, his naked body a horror of scars and trauma. Nothing but repulsive. Even if he keeps it hidden under layers of metal and illusions. Nothing but obvious.

He's been the best of fools.

He rests his head on the ledge as he sinks into the water. The ceiling is a maze of white marble, intersected with light grey grooves. Nothing that he'd noticed before. He watches them, until the water of his bath turns cold and he is left shivering in the vague orange tint of dawn, filtering through the windows.

 

 

 

 

His rooms are quiet and cool. Clean, too. He steps gingerly through the familiar space. Someone must have taken care of them while he was away. The only mess is the pile of armor Hunk has left next to the door. Even his bed is neatly made, sheets white and crisp. Inviting.

The sight of them makes Shiro vaguely queasy, despite the exhaustion.

He puts on his prosthetic, then dresses, choosing soft pants tucked in a well-worn pair of boots and a dark linen shirt—a gift from Allura, embroidered with Voltron's sigil and the seal of the Black Paladin like his armor. She'd often joked that armor was his only outfit, and for a while it was true, he would wear the heavy plates around the castle, day after day. He grabs his sword from the pile of equipment Hunk has left by the door and sets for the training grounds, knowing that some of Allura's commanders will be taking advantage of the early hour to practice their forms in peace. At best, he'll be able to interest them in a bout and relieve his restlessness. Perhaps one of the younger officers will be there. They always indulge him. And if not, he'll be able to devise a plan with the older officers. They'll have to include new drills for the troops so they are prepared to face the galra spawns. Yes, that would be preferable. To focus on the future campaigns, prepare each soldier from the palace guard to the border patroller so that no citizens of the empire may ever fall under the malice of these beasts. Then—after he releases some of the tension, he'll find Allura. Sendak will have precious information that will require prompt responses—but that's for later. Shiro quickens his step, lost in thoughts as details of drills, schedule and priorities, costs in labor and equipment, and stops short as it is not the sounds of physical exertion nor the clangs of swords that welcome him, but the sacred, heavy silence of the temple.

“What—”

The light of dawn has not quite reached the holy room. Instead, soft everglow candles cast flickering lights on the walls. Throning over the room is a heavy banner, silk and brocade, embroidered with golden thread to trace a helmet, stern and crowned with gold—the sigil of Voltron. In place of eyes, two pools of gold shine with unnatural brightness, casting intense light on those who enter the holy rooms. Usually, it is calm and benevolent light but today—today it shines hard and judgmental, rooting Shiro to the spot.

The banner hangs high in the air, held aloft with magic long forgotten but eternal as it watches over five pillars, standing in a semi-circle. Pure marble, tall and proud.

Five pillars, one for each of the paladins.

Shiro approaches warily the pillar in the middle where he once retrieved his medallion. The glass case is empty, laying on a cloth of black silk. He had taken his oath in this room, kneeling in front of his pillar. So did Pidge, Hunk, and Lance, allowing them to retrieve the emerald ring, the citrine and the sapphire cuff. He runs his hands against the black silk. There was always some comfort to be found here across the years. The righteous gaze of Voltron often assuaged his doubts and fears. Today, however, today, there's only cold disappointment. From the corner of his eye, the last bayard of Voltron, the legendary artifacts destined for his chosen warriors, gleams in its glass case. Shiro takes a step closer, gripping the edge of the pillar with both hands until the red silk bunches under his fingers.

“It wasn't him,” Shiro whispers and stares defiantly at Voltron's banner. “He did not stay. He wouldn't stay.”

Pressure builds again behind his eyes, his legs suddenly shaky, and he slides down to the floor, his back against the cold pillar, red silk brushing against the top of his head.

“It wasn't him,” Shiro says. He closes his eyes and forces himself to believe it.

 

 

 

 

A crash—Shiro shudders awake, his hand flying to his sword, instincts driving him upright and ready for violence. He nearly topples from his bed as the momentum pushes his entire body rather than just the arm he no longer has to grab his weapon. There's softness under his thighs—his mattress, his bed. He's home. His racing heartbeat subsides as the soft rumble of the capital registers—he's home.

He sighs, rubbing his hand across his face, then drags his feet to his dresser. He fumbles with his prosthetic. The magic is as groggy as he is and his right hand remains stubbornly limp for long seconds before the gears lock in place and the familiar tingle travel up and down his arm. He throws on a threadbare shirt before he leaves his rooms and walks down the dimly lit corridor—only two doors down, barely a walk at all—to knock softly at the heavy door. He does not wait for an answer. Useless, he learnt early. He slips into the room without a sound.

The chaos doesn't surprise him, but he quickly spots the new additions illuminated by the soft glow of several undying torches: scorch marks against the walls, the rests of several untouched dinners, and blatantly, the bed, now missing one of his posts, cut neatly in half, dragging the drapery to the ground in a half-collapsed wreck.

Well—it explains the crash.

“It was an accident,” Keith says, his back to Shiro. In his hand, his weapon is still activated, bristling with dark energy.

“Huh,” Shiro says, nodding at the half-destroyed bed. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Please,” Keith snorts. His blade retracts into its resting form with a faint whooshing sound and Keith chucks onto the bedside table as he sinks on the ground, his back against the bed, pulling up his knees against his chest, arms crossed tightly over them.

Shiro had hoped that Keith would be happier in Altea. And for some part, he does. He looks healthier; his cheeks have filled up slightly. Shiro has sparred with him enough times by now to know and respect the strength of his arms. He looks cleaner too, his rags replaced by not quite expensive but clean shirts and pants. He'd kept the red shirt from Olkarion. It had torn beyond repair after a couple of washes, but Keith had fashioned it into a rough scarf. Now, the red cloth is never far from his neck. All of them have carefully not mentioned it. Except Lance. Lance has talked about little else. Healthier. Happier. What has not changed are the bruise-like shadows under Keith's eyes. Not something that a guest of the empire, living in peace within the fortified capital would wear. He looks lost, caged and unhappy. Shiro has spent too many years in a cage—he can't bear it.

Shiro kneels in front of Keith. “You know you are free to leave. I—We will not stop you.”

“ _Stop saying that._ If you want me to leave, then just say it,” Keith hisses. His right hand rubs his eyes, the dull shine of the ruby ring reflecting the soft light. Shiro exhales shakily. A knot loosens in his stomach— _he's still wearing it._

“That's not what I want and you know it,” he says gently. “Tell me how to help you.”

Shiro had hoped—he'd hoped that Keith could settle with the Paladins and find his place in the castle. He'd been naive. Allura has been harsh in her training, Keith even harsher in retaliation. Shiro had stood awkwardly in the middle, trying to preserve the balance like some country fair acrobat.

Keith's hand drops from his eyes. “I can't sleep. It's too loud—too loud and too fucking bright, and I can't—I can't—”

His eyes dart to his blade. It's easy to imagine—Keith picking it up and challenging Shiro to a supposedly friendly but ruthless spar. It happened enough times before. But this is not what Keith needs, he needs space and safety and time to recuperate. Nothing that this wreck of a room can possibly achieve.

Shiro takes Keith's arm.

“Come on,” Shiro says and drags Keith's behind him, out of the destroyed room and up the corridor—just two doors down, barely a walk.

Shiro's own quarters are nothing like Keith's chaos. They're neat and orderly. Not uninviting though. Over the years, Shiro has allowed himself a few indulgences: shelves of books he'll never have time to go through—maybe one day, just maybe—thick curtains to block out the sun and noise of the city, bright rugs that warm the cold stone floor in the winter, lush plants that strive under Shiro's dutiful care and bring an essential touch of color and _life._

The door closes gently behind them. Keith had only caught glimpses of his living space before. Now, he stares openly.

“Give me a minute,” Shiro says as rummages through his packs, always at the ready on his dresser in case they're called to action, and locates the coil of iron wire. He goes to the wall-high windows that face the glittering bay of lions and lays down the wire, dragging a chair and a flower pot to hook and secure the wire.

Keith comes up behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Just give me a minute”, Shiro mutters and moves around the room to put down the perimeter. It is less organic than in the forest, where trees determined the natural shape of it, but he makes it work, hooking the wire around pieces of furniture and knickknacks until he can finally join the two ends of the thread, whispering the power words against the knot. The wire glows golden and hot, bathing the room with a bright flash of light, before it subsides into its harmless original shape.

“Shiro—”

Barely a whisper, prodding, uncertain. Shiro ignores it.

“I'll take the first watch,” Shiro says and gestures towards his bed, unmade where Shiro had started his night. Keith hesitates, eyes flitting hesitating Shiro and his bed and the _door._ Shiro moves, putting his body between Keith and the door—a heavy-handed move. He's not proud of it. “You want to sleep and well—this worked well enough when we were stranded up north, didn't it?”

“It did work,” Keith says, and moves deeper in the quiet of Shiro's rooms, wandering about for a few minutes—delaying. Shiro does not comment, settling down in his favorite armchair where he's spent countless hours, ready reports deep into the night. He knows when to hold back—Keith settles down at the edge of the bed, glaring down at it—or when to push.

“I offered. Go on.”

Shiro smiles as Keith's finally lies down, turning his back to him as he drags the cover up to his chin. He rifles through the stack of unread reports, settling down for a long night. Accounts of the outposts across the empire. Training accounts. Weaknesses and proposed changes to the new routines. All important matters that deserve his full attention. Not quite what he can manage at the moment, he realizes and lets his head leans against the edge of the armchair, half-watching on the play of the moonlight against the gauze curtains.

Each shift, each rustle of cloth as Keith adjusts his limbs rings like a bell in the silence. It feels forced. Uncomfortable. Tension radiates from where Keith lays, his breathing artificially calm, his body stiff as a board.

This is not going to work.

With a sigh, Shiro walks over the bed and sits next to Keith's ankle, the shape of it only faint beneath the blanket. He lays a hand over it, the fine, strong bones sharply defined under his palm. Keith stills under his hand. “C'mon, buddy. At least try.”

Keith rolls on his back, the heel of his hands pressing against his eyes. “I can't. This is worse—it smells just like you.”

Shiro has held himself at a distance. Keith had enough to deal with—Allura and the trials, Voltron and the last bayard, a galra alone at the core of the empire. Keith had needed space and time to process without dealing with Shiro's fumbling attentions. Or so he thought. Perhaps—perhaps Shiro has had it all backwards. His fingers tighten helplessly around Keith's ankle.

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, and his hands slide upward, making fists in his dark hair.

Shiro's body moves. His hand lifts the blanket just enough to slide his body along Keith's, propping himself up on one elbow. His hand moves to Keith's jaw, the line of it sharper than steel. The memory of the garrison is bright in his mind. The aftermath of it too when he'd begged and held Keith like he would never let go. Keith's eyes are dark. His breath comes out in sharp pants, bringing their chests to brush against each other for brief, insufferable instants. It seems silly to hesitate now. Shiro has been too far gone since the beginning.

Shiro kisses him.

There's no hesitation, no coyness as Keith opens his mouth under Shiro's. Keith surges against him, hands sinking into Shiro's hair, tight to the edge of pain tearing a groan from his lips. He breathes against Keith's lips, the memory of that single kiss they'd shared south of the river, the urgency of it vivid between them. There's potential in the warmth pooling in Shiro's belly, in the way Keith's mouth hangs open and wet, _inviting._ Shiro's eyes look down at it, half-lost. He wants it—wants it more than anything. But it's not what Keith needs. Not really. Not right now.

He pulls away, but Keith tries to follow, tiny noises of want pushed out from his lungs, his hands keeping their iron grip on Shiro's hair.

_Stop asking me that._

His thumb strokes Keith's cheek, softly until Keith's eyes open to slits.

“I've got you,” Shiro mutters nonsensically and drops one, two kisses to Keith's cheekbone before he moves back to his mouth, coaxing a rhythm from him that is slow and heady. Shiro loses himself in the slick, warm push-and-pull of their mouths. He sinks against Keith, pinning him to the mattress with his bulk.

He's been a fool—this is the easiest thing.

Tension seeps out of Keith's body. His hands go limp in Shiro's hair. The urgency is gone. Instead, Shiro feels certainty cement and hold between them, the awkward, brittle and angry bond they'd forged north of the Olkarion outpost settling into iron and stone. He pulls back, Keith's chest a line of heat against his body.

There is time. They have time.

Shiro rolls over, bringing Keith with him until he's heavy and warm over Shiro's body—the weight of him, the smell of him, his breaths coming in shaky puffs against Shiro's neck—all of it a revelation and he brings the forgotten cover over them both.

“Go to sleep,” he says against Keith's hair after he presses a kisses there—an indulgence, a _compulsion—_ and tightens his arms around him.

He falls asleep with the slow, wet puffs of Keith's breath against his neck. His mind shifts to darkness and unknown, but warm and safe, good, more than good—good until it's not and he opens his eyes to Hunk's worried face, slightly blurry and unfocused. His lips are moving intelligibly, the sounds of it not quite materializing in Shiro's ears. It takes a few breaths for Shiro to understand that he's flat on his back. The pain knocks him back down as he tries to sit up—right, he might not have dodged in time.

“Shiro!” he hears first when his hearing comes back, then the pounding of footsteps as Pidge's face pops in his line of sight, then Lance, and finally Keith, pushing Lance out of the way. He's out of breath, hair sticking up wildly. Lovely. Always. Even as his eyes grow wide.

“I'm fine,” Shiro slurs, and forces himself to sit up. Whatever is wrong with his ribs—very wrong, his torso is half-fire half-ice as if the pain can't quite decide between radiating or stabbing—will have to wait. There's no time to waste. They cannot afford to let anyone escape. They would sound the alarm and months of careful preparations would go down the drain. They've been so close to bringing down Zarkon. It can't fail. He won't let it.

“See, he's fine,” Lance says, and tries to jab Keith in the ribs with his elbow.

Keith snaps back, sidestepping neatly. “He's not fine.”

He drops to his knees, his hands hover uncertainly over Shiro's body, but his eyes are sharp as if he could see through Shiro's armor and assess his wounds. It's unnecessary really, his armor is dented where one of the galra managed to land a hit—hence the ribs.

“You're not fine,” Keith adds, softer, and cups Shiro's neck.

He would have pushed beyond the pain before Keith. He might have still if not for the slight pressure of Keith's thumb to the corner of his mouth. It grounds him, pulls him back to the moment until he cannot ignore the blindsiding pain.

Shiro's head lolls against Keith's hand. “I'm not fine.”

Lance takes a step back. “Ugh, that's creepy.”

“What do you mean it's creepy?” Hunk says, “Six months ago, I would have had to hunt him down for three days before he would let me heal him. That's _amazing_.”

“Hunk, take care of him. Pidge, stay with them,” Keith says. “Lance, with me. We're not letting them get away.”

“Since when are you the leader?” Lance whines.

“Do as he says, Lance,” Shiro says, and exchanges a look with Keith. “Don't do anything reckless.”

_Come back to me,_ he does not say.

“Look who's talking,” Keith smiles, but the pressure of his thumb against Shiro's mouth becomes sharp for a brief instant.

I will.

He watches them disappear between the line of trees, hating each second of it. Nothing good happens in forests. _He despises them._ But there's nothing he can do but groan faintly as the first wave of Hunk's healing spreads through him. His head falls back against the dirt, the mix of pain and relief too sharp to bear. He lets his vision go dark, soothed by Hunk's smooth spell. When he wakes next, sunlight parses through his eyelids almost aggressively. Shiro keeps his eyes carefully shut, not quite ready to face the day. He is haggard—he can't have slept for long, his mind too restless with anticipation and fear. He'd trained all night. Footwork first. Then strength training. Then just mindless punching.

Kolivan and Ulaz would have left already. They'd grown restless over the past few months. Shiro had seen them regret the decision to stay at the Castle of Lions the instant they'd arrived, but they'd held their tongue, too eager to teach their newfound disciple, young, bright and talented _—_ a new hope for their dying organization. They'd held their tongue until yesterday, where they'd announced in clipped tones they would return to their base of operations, far beyond the empire's borders, and asked Keith to come with them.

Shiro had held his tongue too and left for the training grounds, avoiding Keith's eyes. He'd worked on his footwork first, then strength, then he'd just punched the hay dummy until his knuckles bled. Then he'd just collapsed. Going back to their rooms—he would have been too weak.

A lie.

He could haven't faced an empty room and an empty bed. Now, the bench is hard under his back, aches revealing themselves in waves. Outside, he hears the muted sounds of fights and exertions. The recruits are hard at work. It's late already. Whatever decision has been reached, it's been reached hours ago. Now he regrets it. He should spoken up, he should have begged because he knows he couldn't bear if Keith left. And surely he did leave. Keith's had found the belonging he'd always searched for. The Blade. His family.

The door opens and closes, the sounds of men training briefly louder. Then footsteps—someone sits next to Shiro's head. Fingers card through his hair.

“You're keeping your men from strength training,” Keith says. “Whatever will happen if they skip leg day.”

“They're your men, too,” Shiro retorts. A habit more than anything.

Keith pets his hair.

“C'mon, Shiro. We talked about this.”

He can't. Bile clogs his throat. He should have spoken up. Keith should have gone with them, the belonging he'd been seeking for years, perhaps even his family, but Shiro is in love and greedy.

“I'm sorry.”

“Why?” Keith says, his voice sharp and direct, giving not one inch to softness. His hand though—his hand petting Shiro's hair betrays him.

“You should go with them. They're your family,” Shiro forces himself to say because he knows that love and greediness are weak excuses. Worth nothing—

Keith yanks on his hair. “You know I am right where I need to be. Stop trying to tell me otherwise.”

Shiro cannot quite manage words. Instead, he buries his head into Keith's lap, exhaling shakily as Keith wraps his arms around his shoulders.

"Besides, I made sure to steal some of their stuff. Pidge will be able to transport us to their base anytime.”

Shiro laughs against Keith's lap.

“I can't believe you make me get you here,” Keith says as he pets the white streaks of Shiro's hair. “Remember last time we were alone in here?”

Shiro remembers. Vividly. A group of young recruits had barged in on them. Keith on his knees and Shiro—Shiro not in any state to be seen in public. The poor boys—they'd had to transfer half of them to the southern command out of sheer awkwardness.

“Man, this place really gives me ideas,” Keith says. “Let's go back to yours. See if I can put them to good use.”

Shiro chokes out a laugh. It would be easy to let himself be pulled to his feet, to follow Keith and sink into him in heat and pleasure.

“Wait,” Shiro whispers. “Let's stay here for a while.”

Keith sighs.

“They'll talk,” he says, voice as sharp as it's ever been, but again, the way his hand shifts in Shiro's hair betrays him again. It guides Shiro's head onto his lap. “You know they'll talk.”

Shiro manages a laugh. It falls short of truthful, but Keith does not comment on it and lets him gather his thoughts.

“After all of this is done,” he mutters, the wish still half-formed but suddenly impossible to ignore. “Perhaps we could cross the sea. Try to find my parents.”

“Sure.” Keith whispers back. His hand does not falter against Shiro's hair. Like what Shiro just asked is nothing. Shiro exhales slowly. And perhaps it is—nothing. The accumulated strain of the night falls on him at once. His muscle ache. He's pulled something in his shoulder that emits a dull pain. Worse, his head is pounding, weighing like a mix of a hundred hangovers. He concentrates on the slow, tender movements against his hair. The smell of Keith's clothes under his cheek—the sounds of training filtering through the walls, shouts of orders and clangs of sword, grunts of pain and exertion—it feels like home. He sees his parents waving from the edge of their small house, smiling wetly but smiling. He feels the warmth of his father's steady presence, the warmth of his mother's embrace, the warmth's of Keith's embrace above all. He shifts towards it and wakes to Keith's soft snoring, his breath warm and moist against Shiro's shoulder, his hair absolutely wild. Shiro rolls on his side, and his hand moves to straighten the unholy mess of Keith’s hair in some semblance of order _—_ without much success but that's not the point, really.

“I didn't hear you come back,” Shiro says when Keith’s breath falters lightly. His eyes are still closed, but Shiro is not fooled.

“You were sleeping like the dead. I didn't want to wake you,” Keith whispers back.

“Thanks,” Shiro says. “Welcome back.”

“That's it? That's all I get? No, I'm so glad you're back? No tears and desperate hugs?” Keith whines, but he's smiling, and Shiro has to cup his cheek, relishing the shape of Keith's lips under his palm. “You don't even worry about me anymore.”

Shiro does worry less. Keith has learned that there are people who wait for him to come home. He's learned. As has Shiro.

“I worry only about Lance,” Shiro says. “Did you return him to Allura in one piece?”

“Barely,” Keith laughs openly. It kicks the breath right out of Shiro’s lungs and he rolls over, pinning Keith under him, stealing Keith’s own breath in retaliation. Time stills as they kiss, sinking into each other's body, familiar as their own after so many years.

“I missed you like a half of my body,” Shiro whispers against Keith’s lips.

“Your good half, I hope,” Keith laughs, his knees coming to frame Shiro’s hips snugly, shifting until their bodies fit closely, bringing the hard press of their cocks together.

“Happy to see me?” Shiro says, smugly as he rolls his hips against Keith's, the friction better that it has any right to be.

“Well, now that we've _finally_ found something that you can do well, Paladin. You'll allow me to indulge,” Keith says. “Now, welcome me back properly.”

Keith tilts his head up, exposing the elegant lines of his throat, knowing what it does to Shiro and exploiting every trick of it, from the bare collarbone to the heavy lidded gaze _—_ a simple command, with no words at all, but Shiro understands. It is no sacrifice to oblige, even if he stalls, taking Keith's mouth until his lips are plumped and red, until Keith whines faintly as Shiro abandons moves away from them. It takes Shiro all his strength to ignore the needy sound and move downward, first paying his respects to the pale skin of Keith's throat, mouth latching there until he feels Keith's pulse quicken under his tongue, then his chest, biting and licking the tight skin, leaving it pink and angry. His hand strokes against the hard muscles of Keith's stomach as his mouth explores the line of Keith's collarbone, fingers scratching the dark trail of hair that disappears beneath his pants.

“Shiro,” Keith breathes out—enough of a statement for Shiro to press a last kiss to Keith's toned skin, and kneels on the bed. Keith lifts his hips just enough long to remove the loose pants he wears and Shiro drags Keith towards him until Keith's legs fit snugly around his hips.

There's so much he wants. His mind stutters over the possibilities—him on his back, hands clutching Keith's straining thighs as Keith lowers himself onto him, hands flat against Shiro's heaving chest, eyes closed and cheeks flushed bright red, pushing and rocking against him—or him, muffling his moans into a pillow as Keith thrusts into him, a line of heat and muscles against Shiro's back, driving forward with a relentless rhythm that knocks his teeth together and pushes moans out of him that will make him shrivel down in embarrassment only later when he inevitably remembers them.

The sight of Keith, cock red and dripping against his stomach, chest heaving, skin pink with a flush—it still makes Shiro speechless. He drags his own sleeping pants down, palming himself, and their eyes meet. No—they won't make it that far today. Keith's eyes travel down Shiro's chest to his groin and come to rest on Shiro's cock, already hard in his hand. He licks his lips. They're red—bruised and bitten—Shiro's own handiwork. His breath falters. No—no way they make it that far and he lies back down on his stomach, fitting Keith's legs over his shoulders. He wraps a hand at the base of Keith's cock, exhaling once, twice over the head before he takes it into his mouth. Keith's hand flies instantly to Shiro's head as he swallows down the shaft slowly, partly to give himself time to adjust, partly to savor every variation of Keith's reaction.

This is a challenge, too. Test their limits. See who breaks first.

Keith's hand is limp in his hair as Shiro feels his throat open, taking Keith's cock deep and full. He enjoys it for a second, that feeling of fullness—the thin line between pure control and unwanted strain before he moves up again, running the flat of his tongue along the thick vein of Keith's cock. He glances up as he focuses on the tip. Keith's face is wrecked, his cheeks flushed, lips bitten, and the sight of him goes straight to Shiro's cock, hard and neglected. His hips grind against the mattress, desperate for the friction, as he returns to his task, teasing the slit of Keith's cock with his tongue, groaning with it.

That does it. Keith's hand fists tightly in Shiro's hair, body arching of the mattress as he moans long and low. Shiro rewards him by sinking onto his cock again. He puts his arm across Keith's chest, palm flat against his heart, greedy at the feeling of Keith's racing heartbeat as he moves up and down. Absently, he wishes he had the other hand to stroke and soothe the tense muscles of Keith's thighs. Keith would not shy away from the touch of his synthetic arm—he never has.

“Shiro,” Keith pants and his hand tightens on Shiro's hair. “Here—with me—”

Shiro pulls off and moves back up to lie on his side. Keith's falls into him instantly, seeking a kiss as their joined hands move to wrap around their cocks, spit and precome easing the slide of their hands. It's been so long. Months of separation burn their restraint to ashes, and it only takes two ruthless strokes of their tangled hands before Keith comes, not quite managing to bite off a moan, his head buried against Shiro's shoulder. The sight of him is almost too much. He tilts Keith's head towards him, fitting their mouths together, and with a few frantic strokes he comes over Keith's stomach, groaning into his mouth.

“I missed you too,” Keith whispers as they regain their breaths. “Stealth missions are not the same without you and your clunking armor.”

Shiro laughs, leaving a last kiss on Keith's mouth before he stands, stretching in the morning light. He wets a cloth in the small basin they keep close to their bed, wiping his hand and his stomach. When he turns, Keith is watching him. Shiro never thinks of himself as beautiful, his body too battered for that, but when Keith looks at him like this—well, it makes him doubt.

“Any success on your mission?” he asks as he wipes Keith's body clean, still pliant under his hands.

“You could say that,” Keith says, a hungry, determined smile on his lips. He's so beautiful like this—eyes blazing but his face open and relaxed in a way it could never have been when they met. “We found where Zarkon is hiding.”

Shiro stills—that is impossible news. They've worked so hard for this—months of careful planning shift and reform in Shiro's mind. They have to talk to Allura and discusses the next moves. They're so close.

“It can wait,” Keith says. “Let Lance deal with Allura. You know he wants too.”

This—this is not a lie, and Shiro lies back down. Perhaps they have time for another round, even a nap before they're disturbed. He spreads his hand over Keith's stomach, the skin taut under his palm.

“It can wait,” Shiro nods and settles down beside Keith.

Time blurs—they do fall into another round, the pleasure of it leaves Shiro exhausted and he falls back to sleep easily, comforted by the body lying next to him, the familiar heat of it.

A nudge—Keith pushes his nose against Shiro's bicep.

“We should get up,” Keith says. Shiro groans and rolls over, pinning Keith to the mattress.

“There's time yet,” he lies and tucks Keith's pliant body under his chin.

Another nudge—he ignores it, putting a kiss to the crown of Keith's head. At least what he thinks he might reach. They've deserved at least a morning off after months of separation. At least one morning of rest and pleasure—it's not much to ask.

Another nudge—more persistent, somehow sharper—Shiro shudders awake, flaying until he finds Allura's eyes. Soft even if her hand is insistent on his shoulder.

“We looked everywhere for you,” Allura says. She's on her knees beside him, a soft smile gracing her features. Behind her, Pidge, Lance, and Hunk are waiting awkwardly. Fully equipped in their gear. “What are you doing here?”

Sensations come back to him in waves. His pounding heartbeat. His shirt, drenched in sweat, sticking to his skin, raised with goosebumps.

What— Where—

Shiro blinks. The stone of the red paladin's pillar is solid against his back, the holy chamber bathed in light.

Allura's hand moves to his cheek. “We thought it best to let you rest although I would have recommended your bed,” she says softly. “You have done so well.”

He pushes himself up. His hands are shaking.

No.

_No._

It can't be. He has to go back—to the warmth and the belonging, to the fear that he could lose it all rather than the knowledge he can never have it. The heavy banner of Voltron hangs still, illuminated by the bright midday sun, but the images slip away from him already. Shapeless, _tasteless_ echoes of another life. Of a _future_.

“I'm afraid there's no more time for rest,”Allura says. “Your captive has given us invaluable information.”

His captive. Sendak.

Shiro pushes himself to his feet, eyes fixed on Voltron's banner.

“He told us where his allies are hiding,” Allura says. “We need to move fast—before they realize of one theirs has fallen.”

It comes crashing back to Shiro, pushing the sight of opportunities and unwritten paths further from his mind. There's a choice. Pursue the galra for the empire or—

Zarkon.

Zarkon is the priority. He has to be.

He's dedicated his life to Voltron's war and way of life, fighting and bleeding to atone for what he’s done in captivity. He’d always known he would die for the oath he’d taken in this very room, kneeling in front of the pillar. He’d die, bleeding on the ground, alone. He’d known and he’d accepted it.

She's right. Now is the time to move against Zarkon. While they have the advantage. It's what he's prepared himself to do.

His hand lifts to his holy symbol. It's faintly warm. “I can't. I'm sorry.”

“What? What's going on with you—You’re acting strange.”

She looks worried—His friend. His oldest friend. Behind her, his fellow Paladins are watching him, worried too. He knows them well-enough to recognize the signs.

He knows them. His friends. His team. He can trust them.

“I've found him,” he says. “I've found the Red Paladin.”

“What?”

“I found him but I let him go,” Shiro whispers. “I was scared and I didn’t fight for him. I was wrong. I need to go after him.”

“I don't understand—where? When?” Allura says, voice more urgent and sharp. She’s frowning, mouth turned in an unhappy line— and why shouldn't she be unhappy. She has searched for the Red Paladin for years, trained dozens of young boys and girls in the hope they could pick up the ring, all in vain. The seat has remained empty.

“He's—” Shiro breaks off, wishing he could talk of Keith's smile, of the stubborn turn of his mouth, the way he throws himself into combat. But this is not what Allura needs to know. This is not what she'll judge. “You sent me after him. Although he was not the one I needed to fear. Not really. He helped me find and fight Sendak. He saved my life.”

“I don't understand,” Allura says, but doubt creeps in her eyes. She does understand. She does, even if she doesn't want to believe it.

“That man in the forest,” Pidge whispers, always the sharpest among them. “On the other side of the riverbank.”

“But Sendak—” Allura says. “He was the one you tracked, wasn't he? The one who attacked the outpost?”

“There was another,” Shiro says. “Galra too.”

Allura rears back. “You cannot be serious.”

“Are you telling us that the Red Paladin is galra?” Hunk says.

Next to him, Lance snorts. “Come on, galra are the monsters in children's stories, not the _heroes_.”

“You don't know him,” Shiro says. “He's _good_.”

Better than good. Keith had helped him track their preys. He'd kept watch as Shiro slept. He'd kissed him as if he'd never wanted to kiss anyone else.

“Good?” Allura laughs, but her face is distorted with rage. “How dare you imply that a galra could bear what my father has died for? _How dare you?_ ”

Shiro squares his shoulders. “Allura, listen to me— ”

“They nearly destroyed the empire with their greed! They killed my father!”

“Come on, Shiro,” Lance adds, laying a hand on Allura's shoulders. She's shaking—despite the centuries, the pain of losing her father still raw. “We all know this.”

“Zarkon did,” Shiro says. “Zarkon is our enemy. He imposed his madness on his people, perversion and enslaved them, but some fought back. They did not all succumb to the corruption.”

“You're mad—”

“He wielded a galra weapon and used their magic. I'd expected a monster,” Shiro said— he'd not realized Keith wore a mask at first, too ready to fear him. Keith's skin has been smooth and young, his eyes bright with vitality, body lithe and tall, nothing like the hulking shape of Sendak, half-rotted away. “But there was nothing corrupt about him. He was flesh and blood. Like you and me—like any of us.”

“I will die before I let a galra wear my father died to protect,” Allura spits. “Perhaps—perhaps it's better if you stay behind, Shiro, until you've cleared your head.”

She takes a step back and Lance is waiting by her side to usher away. Not quickly enough—Shiro grabs her hand.

“If you don't believe me, then believe _him,”_ Shiro says.

_Please,_ Shiro thinks and brings her hand to his holy symbol.

The world shifts.

 

 

 

 

His footsteps echo dully in the empty hall. It's early still, the hallways mainly empty but for a few servants. They bow as he whooshes by them, his gait fast, almost dainty.

All wrong.

He understands why as he pushes the door and sees his fingers, slender and dark. Allura's hand. Somehow—he's seeing through her eyes.

She closes the door silently behind her. Shiro recognizes the usual meeting room of the Paladins, where they've devised their most secret plans, also where they've gathered regularly to drink and talk. Over the years, the simple meeting room with high windows looming over the bay of lions has gained plush carpets that keep their feet warm over interminable meetings, comfortable furniture and a battery of protective spells to justify its status as their true base of operations.

Allura hesitates as she stands in the darkness of the entryway. At the center of the room, Shiro sees himself, bowed over a map, palms flat on the table. Next to his hand, steam rises from a pot, cups neatly lined up at its side. It's strange to see himself. Not unlike watching his reflection in the mirror, but it feels disconnected, like watching a twin he's never had. It reveals details he's never quite seen before. His white hair flopping over his forehead. The way his shirt bunches across his shoulders. He looks intent, mouth turned down in an unhappy frown, eyes razor-sharp as he studies the papers on the table.

Just as Allura prepares herself to step forward, another door opens at the side.

Keith walks in, dressed in soft clothes, half-asleep and rumpled even with the galra blade strapped to his waist. He yawns his way to Shiro, stretching his arms high over his head. His other self watches Keith approach. His expression transforms. It's almost— _embarrassing_. His eyes turn soft, the line of his shoulders relax, some hard tension in his face disappears completely. Shiro wishes he could cover Allura's eyes, but his other self is oblivious as he smiles and guides a mug into Keith's hand. Keith takes it gratefully, leaning into Shiro as he sips from the cup mechanically until his eyes grow sharp enough to focus on the map's detail.

Allura stays silent, watching them as they huddle together, exchanging soft words and pointing to unseen features of the map until footsteps echo behind the closed door, Hunk, Lance and Pidge's bickering growing louder and louder.

“Good morning,” Allura says, stepping forward just as the door opens, as if she'd been leading the rest of the Paladins.

They lose no time to pleasantries. Allura lays down the hard facts. Reports of scouting missions and scrying spells, all pointing to a valley in the east. The bastion of the remaining corrupt Galra. Zarkon's lair. But they're missing the last, most important pieces of intel. Their exact location. Their number. Their fighting capacity.

It's now or never: an amazing opportunity. Nothing they'll ever manage to have again.

Allura takes a deep breath.

“Lance—”

“It should be me!” Keith snaps. “Iknow how they operate and how they hunt. If you send anyone on this reckon mission, send me!”

Allura raises a hand, a clear gesture for order as Shiro moves to object, as Lance rolls his eyes, ready to launch on a lengthy argument, and Hunk and Pidge release heavy sighs. They all fall silent.

“As I was trying to say,” Allura says with a wry smile. “Lance—you'll accompany the Red Paladin on this mission. Make sure he doesn't get himself killed while trying to get to Zarkon without any backup.”

Tension dissolves in the room and Allura is the first to laugh.

“I expect a full report,” she says and reaches for Keith, hand stretching to cup his cheek as she's done so many times with Shiro throughout the years and Shiro blinks back to the holy room, meeting Allura's shocked eyes.

“Keith,” Shiro whispers. “His name is Keith.”

Something gives way in Allura's eyes, a sliver of doubt. She turns away and her face tilts up towards Voltron's banner, silently watching over them. “It can't be—”

Shiro knows that what he saw is not in stones. It's only one path, forged by their will and the whims of time and luck.

“It might,” Shiro says. “Don't you see hope? Opportunity?”

Allura shakes her head. “It's a trick. He's lying to you.”

Shiro smiles, the damned scent of juniper still coating the back of his throat. “He wouldn't lie.”

He's got his friend's attention if nothing else. Pidge and Hunk have drifted closer, eyes sharp. Allura looks defensive, but she has not left yet. He can do this.

Shiro clears his throat. “The galra were once his subjects too, before Zarkon took his gifts and perverted them. Imagine. We could erase centuries of hatred, build a new, united empire.”

“How?”

“There are galra fighting against their oppressor, desperately in need of support and legitimacy. We can _help_ them, ally ourselves with them.”

“What good would that do us?” Hunk asks, Lance nodding emphatically next to him, arms crossed.

“Knowledge,” Shiro says. “About the galra, about their kind.”

“The old arts—” Pidge says. “The galra used to wield powerful magic, but we've long lost the knowledge.”

Shiro nods tightly, remembering Keith's sword in its activated form, brimming with dark energy, raining destruction on its enemy.

“The Blade of Marmora—we've been wrong about them. There's a rumor that its members were regrouping at the garrison. Keith was making his way north to rejoin them, they'd been separated— well, it's a long story. I believe Sendak was making his way there, but we ran into him first— Allura, what is it?” he asks as he watches color's drains from Allura's face, her eyes widening.

“I— I didn't know. Shiro, I didn't _know_ ,” Allura says.

Something breaks. Perhaps a piece of glass from the case, crunching under Shiro's boot as he shifts his weight.

“There'd been reports of galra activity for months in the North, unsettling our people, disrupting their lives. I had to do something,” Allura says haltingly. “I'd heard whispers of the Blade of Marmora, creeping back to the empire after years of exile. I thought that I could use this. I thought that—”

Cold dread spreads throughout Shiro. Each beat of his heart brings another stab of pain as he watches Allura's eyes grow wide.

“Shiro, _I_ started the rumor. It's a trap.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be a stranger. Please let me know your thoughts!


	4. Chapter 4

Shiro has always known he would die for his oath. He's been ready for a long time—ready to bleed alone and let his eyes dim, watching the retreating backs of his enemies. After all, he should have died in the dirt of the arena years ago. He's been ready—but he's never quite thought of those that would die because of his oath.

_I've never been so close,_ Keith had said. _They're my family._

“Allura,” Shiro says and his voice comes out in a broken whisper. “What have you done?”

Her mouth hangs open as he stares at him. Each moment as she doesn't speak drags like an eternity. Shiro's fists clench—the urge to move, to act almost overwhelming.

“What you have done?” he repeats, voice louder, _meaner_. “Allura!”

“Mercenaries from the northern clans,” she chokes out. “I’ve hired them to stalk the garrison. Their order is to kill anyone there who comes and bears the signs of the galra.”

The bright glow of the galra symbol on Keith's sword—Shiro's breathing goes shallow.

_Your empire has hunted my kind for centuries,_ Keith had said. He'd been right. He’d been right and Shiro had told to trust the Paladins of Voltron.

“When?” Shiro says. “Allura, _when_?”

“Weeks ago, but they won't give up so easily. I've promised a hefty reward. I've—it's too late.”

No, he won't let that happen. He won't—he grabs Allura's wrist.

“Send me there. Open a portal to the garrison—now!”

“I can't,” she says, her face stricken and red. “You know I can't.”

“I don’t care! Find a way!”

He's yelling. He knows he is, but he can't bring himself to care, something won't allow it—something dark, risen from a past where he used to fight for his life day after day. It snarls as Hunk and Lance step forward, shielding Allura on each side.

“You know the rules,” Hunk says. “She can only open portal where she's been to.”

“And even if she could, the garrison is beyond the empire's borders,” Lance adds. “You know we can't go there. It would break the truce.”

“I'm sorry,” Allura whispers, her pulse frantic beneath Shiro's palm. “I didn't know.”

Blood beats hot under his skin. There has to be a way. His mind flits through the means of reaching the garrison. He has no useful magic, nothing that he could use for quick travel. On his own, it would them him weeks to reach the garrison, but he has allies in the city, favors he could call in—

Pidge's fingers are cool as she touches Shiro's hand, where he's still clutching Allura's wrist.

“Shiro,” she whispers, her voice kind. She'd been with him as he'd watched Keith turn away from him and had waited in silence, hand on his forearm, until he'd been ready to limp back towards the camp. She'd not pushed. Somehow, she'd understood. “We can't send you to the garrison, but I can open a portal to _him._ ”

Slowly she peels his fingers away from Allura's wrist to deposit something small and cool in his palm. The whetstone she'd once gifted him.

“I just need something that belongs to him. Did he leave you anything?”

Shiro looks at her blankly. No. Nothing. Shiro's fingers clench around the small misshapen rock. Keith has left him nothing but a gash in his mind, filled with the echo of a lifetime they would not share because Shiro has been a coward and _let him go_.

Behind him, Voltron's banner ripples in an absent wind.

The image bursts again clearly in Shiro's mind, even clearer and sharper than when he'd first laid his hands on Keith's bleeding and broken body. There's Pidge and Hunk, leaning against two pillars, covered in green and gold. There's Lance, one hand supporting his chin. His elbow rests on the blue cloth adorning the far-right pillar.

There's Shiro himself, standing tall, arms crossed in front of the centerfold pillar, draped in black. He's smiling, glancing to his right—at Keith, who's standing behind the last pillar.

Five paladins. United at last.

It has to be worth it.

He turns back to the pillar covered by blood red silk. His hands do not shake as he topples the glass case that rests there. Someone gasps as it shatters on the ground—Allura or Hunk, maybe. It doesn't matter. He ignores them. Instead, he picks up the ruby ring gingerly. It is surprisingly heavy for an object that would barely fit on Shiro's little finger. The gem is mesmerizing up close, larger than a thumb's fingernail, but clear and deep, catching the light and glinting like blood. It throbs faintly with violence and righteousness, echoing the beat of his own holy symbol.

“Use this,” he says and hands the ring to Pidge.

“You know that's not how it works,” Allura says. “Without the trials, it's just a ring. A mere trinket.”

“It's his,” Shiro says. It has to be. It's the only way. “Please, won't you try?”

Pidge hesitates before she picks up the ring and folds it between her hands. Its emerald twin glints on her finger on her ring, simple but impossibly bright as she concentrates on the spell, power words falling from her lips as they have done countless times before. Shiro listens to them as if he's never heard them before. Time passes—longer than Shiro can bear.

“You can do this,” Shiro whispers—half an encouragement, half a reassurance from himself. He lays his hand on Pidge's shoulder, squeezing gently and his mind focuses on Keith, wishing he could help her focus her spell. He thinks of Keith's face, the strength and ruthlessness of him. He thinks of Keith, dead and alone. Because of the empire. As he'd predicted.

There's a slight breach in the space, a tear where Shiro could barely slip his hand—Shiro presses firmer on Pidge's shoulder.

“Here, keep going.”

Hunk comes up behind Pidge and his hand presses on her back, muttering something Shiro can't hear. The disturbance in the space flickers, thick as Shiro's palm, then no thinner than a thumb.

It's uncertain, Shiro realizes, and he glances at Voltron's banner.

_It should be him,_ Shiro thinks, staring down at Voltron's banner, but that's not enough—

“I have not asked for much,” Shiro says under his breath. “I know it should be him. It has to be.”

The portal opens with a burst of light and they all stumble back, covering their eyes from the aggressive light.

“It worked,” Pidge breathes out, facing the open portal with disbelief.

Shiro steps forward. His body is halfway through the portal before he hesitates.

He will go. This is not the question. He won't be stopped. The question is whether he can return. After all, he knows what crossing the river means: treason.

Shiro turns back to Allura, the princess, his oldest friend, the one who'd raised him from nothing and given him a purpose. Her eyes are wide as she watches the bright circle of the portal, its golden light bathing the holy chamber in warm glows.

“Go,” she says. “All of you, go.”

 

 

 

 

They step through the portal—into chaos.

“Watch out!” Lance shouts and they scramble out of the way of a burning beam.

The heat is the first thing he registers, hotter than any summer day in Altea, almost like they've stepped into an oven. The second thing he registers are the sounds: cracks of the old wood echo around them in an ominous song, flames licking up the walls and the floors crackling like a thunderstorm.

Wherever Pidge’s spell has made landfall, its target is long gone and has left its mark. The building where they’ve landed is halfway burnt through. They all know that Pidge's spell does not guarantee them a safe landing. They've gone through enough mishaps and complete messes that they know to manage their expectations, but this—this might be one of the worse ones. Smoke is already stinging his eyes as he takes in the broken beds, covered by moth-eaten bedding, a dozen of them cramped in the smallish room with military precision disturbed only by years of neglect. This was a dormitory.

The garrison, it must be.

Shiro grits his teeth, his breathing already growing more difficult because of the smoke.

“This isn’t good,” Pidge says as she glances out of a window. “Looks like we’re on the third floor.”

Well, perhaps not one of the worse situations but the worst.

“We need to get out of here,” Shiro says, and they rush out the room just as the building releases a meaningful groan, spreading an overwhelming wave of heat over them. The stairs are still manageable and they take the steps two by two, Lance and Hunk careening in the front, Pidge lagging behind them.

“What happened here?” Lance shouts.

Shiro remembers the neat rows of fire bombs, explosives, and trip wires very distinctly. It’s not hard at all to make a guess.

“Keith happened.”

“And you want us to go get him?” Lance yells back, dragging Hunk out of the way of falling timber. Falling burning timber. “Are you mad!?”

Shiro tries to shout something back but the entire structure shifts and slides under their feet. He barely manages to grab onto Pidge, folding her into his arms, before they start falling, Hunk's piercing shrieks somehow louder that the groan of the collapsing building.

Pidge unleashes her shield spell a heartbeat before it's too late. Pieces of wood and masonry bouncing back harmlessly on the barrier. Shiro watches them fall for a moment as he tries to find his breath. Next to them, Hunk and Lance get up in an unholy scramble of limbs and shrieks.

“Thanks,” Pidge says against his chest.

“No problem,” he whizzes back as Hunk and Lance help them to their feet. They know well enough that Pidge has the best spells to prevent them from instant death, provided she has time and concentration enough to cast them.

Still a two-story fall—his back already feels like one solid bruise.

“Right,” Hunk says as the building groans again. “Let's get out of there.”

They manage, mostly thanks to Hunk who barrels his way through a wall, the force of his panic always a sight to behold. Still, he ends up, singed and vaguely smoking, while Lance and Pidge fluttering around to put out the fires.

Shiro stumbles behind them, ready for violence but the open street is deserted. It would be almost peaceful if not for the roar of the burning building behind them. The fire has started to spread to the adjacent buildings. It's a recipe for disaster if left unchecked. He turns away—this is an issue for someone else. He itches for his shield, feeling exposed as he scours his surroundings, but there are no signs of movements, no hints of struggle despite the chaos that warms his back.

His lip curls over his teeth. “Pidge.”

She nods once. Her spell spreads silently around them, but the gold reveals no clear patterns, no signs of struggle.

_Where are you?_ Shiro thinks, but there's nothing. The silence mocks him.

Shiro's hand goes to the medallion, the edge of the diamond bites into his palm. It's cold. A useless piece of rock.

Of course, he would choose to be silent, now.

“Let's split up,” Shiro says. “We'll cover more ground that way.”

“Splitting the party never works—” Hunk whines.

Shiro ignores him. “If you find mercenaries, tell them to stand down. If you find—if you find anybody else, do not engage and send me a message.”

“Shiro, wait!” Pidge calls out. “We don't even know what he looks like!”

“You'll know,” Shiro calls back.

They'll know.

He runs faster without the weight of his armor. Keith cannot be far. Pidge’s spell would have brought them close to him, but if he was fleeing, or worse, if he’d been taken—no, Keith would have managed to escape. He's strong.

He's strong but perhaps not enough to fend back a coordinated attack from mercenaries who know the terrain. As Shiro turns a corner, he sees sprawling barracks, several sturdy buildings that could have held offices, storage space and armories. This complex could have fed, lodged and trained hundreds of men. Shiro skids to a halt, breathing hard. Keith's strong but perhaps not enough to last until Shiro finds him.

It takes him a few breaths to recognize the feeling in his chest. Past the fear and the adrenaline, there's only panic. It overwhelms him, clogging his thoughts into one useless mush. Helplessly, he looks around him. There’s nothing. No screams and no explosions and burning buildings to guide his way. As if there was nothing amiss—as if he was already too late. His heart seizes and pounds. He can’t be too late. He won’t accept it.

He closes his eyes. In the distance, he hears the roar of the fire, the rush of the wind between buildings. He filters them out until his ears ring hollow. Slowly, he opens his eyes.

_What do you see?_ Keith had asked him.

He sees the garrison as it should be, abandoned and left to the elements. Rain and wind carving grooves in the dirt, battering the buildings until they rot and break down. Even unchecked, weeds would find the hard-trodden difficult to breach. But here—grooves in the dirt that have not been drilled by rain and and wind. Shiro advances for a few halting steps, stopping and focussing again and again, until he's moved past several buildings, moving east, towards the wall and he hears faint shouts in the distance.

There.

_There._

His legs pound against the dirt, thighs burning with exertion. He ignores it—he ignores everything as he runs past abandoned building and decrepit shacks.

There's nothing for interminable seconds until—faint shadows in the subdued light of the day. He can't make sense of what he sees—a dozen shapes of them, moving hastily in the open space. Arrows and flash of magic fly between them, forcing them to seek cover behind wall and irregularities in the terrain. As Shiro watches, one figure separates itself from the rest—pushing recklessly towards the fortified wall.

Instinctively, Shiro knows.

The figure is overwhelmed by attacks. He drops his crossbow first, a good tactical choice as there is no time to reload and he focuses on parrying attacks with his blade, the energy blazing bright purple at its edge.

He's alive. _Keith's alive._

“Hold,” Shiro whispers uselessly, just as Keith's blade is ripped from his hand and goes flying away from him, landing a few steps away from his crossbow.

Keith lurches forward, stretching his arm as if he could retrieve his weapon. Impossible but Shiro sees the tension in his fingers—there's a moment of hesitation, terrible and infinite, before Keith turns away, scrambling up the fortified wall to seek his escape.

He almost makes it, and Shiro cheers for him for every step he takes. Almost—his fingers almost brush with the edge of the wall before one of the mercenaries lifts her hand towards him and her magic brings him like a sack of flour down on the ground.

He goes down silently, like a puppet, and the mercenary manages to lift him up and to slam against the wall of the battlements before some measure of fire creeps back into Keith's eyes. He fights against the unseen bounds, teeth bared, eyes blazing as he struggles against the magical force that pins his arms to the wood, spread away from his body.

One of the mercenaries steps forward slowly to pick up Keith's crossbow. Undoubtedly their leader, the rest of the soldiers fall behind her, giving her a wide, respectful birth. A woman—human. As she bends down, Shiro sees the bolt in her shoulder. Blood stains her tunic in thick stripes.

Keith did not go down without a fight. Even now, he strains against the invisible hold, pushing to get free.

The mercenary talks as she retrieves a dark bolt from her pack, nothing like the smooth oak of Keith's bolts. She’s talking but Shiro is too far to hear. In a few swift motions, she arms the crossbow and shoulders it, its nose aimed straight at Keith with the unflinching ease of experience.

“Hold!” Shiro shouts but he's too far. The bolt flies true, sinking into Keith's shoulder without a sound—Shiro is still too far, too _far_ even as he runs forward, the ground disappearing under his feet, but he sees Keith's try to curl around the new wound, still restrained by the spell, mouth open in a scream.

That scream—that scream Shiro hears.

The leader leans towards the mercenary next to her, the one who's stunned Keith—a balmeran of all things—and mutters a few words. The balmeran nods, a nasty smile on her face, as she snaps her fingers. Behind her, Keith's feet scrambles in the dirt as the spell vanishes and suddenly the only thing holding him up is the bolt imbedded deeply in the wood, through his shoulder. His hand grabs the bolt, slick with blood and sweat, as he tries to push himself up and release the pressure on the wound.

Shiro keeps running. At least, he thinks he does. Surely, his legs are straining, muscles bunching up with effort, but his vision narrows. Almost there—they've heard him. One by one, mercenaries whirl around and raise their weapons towards him—the first arrow misses by a wide range, the second almost finds his throat, but Shiro ignores them, pushing straight ahead.

On his chest, his holy symbol jumps.

Radiant energy falls down upon them, the light too bright and aggressive to be anything but painful. Shiro dives into the wall of light. Around him, mercenaries are slammed to the ground under the sheer pressure of the spell. He dances away from the haphazard strikes of those who manage to withstand it, pushing against them—pushing and pushing until he feels Keith's body against his. For an instant, Keith fights him. Weak as a kitten. His hands barely manage to form fists. Shiro shushes him, propping Keith's body against his to release pressure on the wound. It must be torture—the wound in his shoulder has stretched where the bolt was holding Keith's weight. His leather armor is already soaked with blood. There's no way around it—he meets Keith's wide eyes. His lips move with Shiro’s name.

“I'm sorry,” Shiro says and he snaps the bolt protruding from Keith's shoulder, dragging Keith's body against him. The shaft slides through Keith's shoulder with a wet sucking sound. Keith sags against him, muffling his whimpers against Shiro's shoulder. Shiro shudders as the weight of him, the smell of him registers—decades he has spent learning the smell and weight of him—and his arm tightens around Keith. He wishes— he wishes, but he grits his teeth as he lowers Keith to the ground. There's no way Keith will be able to slink away while he distracts the mercenaries. He's white as a sheet, shaking in Shiro's arms.

It doesn't look good, but Shiro does not let himself be distracted. First things first.

“Keep pressure on the wound,” he says as he gathers the tails of Keith's cloak to press against the wound. Keith's hand moves sluggishly to his shoulder.

“It'll be alright,” Shiro whispers, perhaps for his own sake, and he turns around, putting as much distance between Keith and him as he dares. It's not much. He stops by Keith's blade discarded in the dirt just as the leader rises to her feet, dusting her trousers off. Shiro sets his feet wide apart, raising his sword in front of him—in front of Keith. He realizes he's panting, the sheer power of the spell still ringing in his bones. The tip of his sword is doing drunken circles in the air, his arm shakes with adrenaline. He lowers his sword to the ground before his arm gives away, but keeps his eyes trained on the leader.

“You will hold,” Shiro says again.

Her gaze travels over the prone figures of her soldiers. Some are still struggling to stand. A few are not moving at all. She orders those that are standing with a few swift gestures and they fall behind her in a defensive formation. Shiro's eyes linger on each of them, meeting their guarded eyes long enough to see doubt in them. Something he can exploit. Something to get their attention away from Keith.

Her eyes travel over him for longer than he's comfortable with. “You're a long way from home, Paladin.”

“You know who I am. Hear what I have to say.”

“I have no interest in what you have to say,” she says, her voice calm. She leans towards her balmeran soldier, whispering another string of words in her ear. Shiro squares his shoulders. He won't be able to intimidate them all, but he knows what else might work with their kind.

“You should if you want to get paid,” Shiro says. “The terms of your contract have changed.”

“My contract is clear. All I need to know is how much your empress will pay me for every galra head I bring her.”

Behind them, Keith coughs—no, he's not coughing, he's _laughing_.

“He was right—” Keith manages to say, through whimpers and laughs that are almost sobs. He struggles to his feet. “Sendak—he was right. I knew this would happen.”

Shiro flinches. He remembers Sendak's words, the way Keith had recoiled from them. The truth of them burns between them. There will be time later, to worry and to regret, to _explain_ , but not now.

“I speak for Allura,” Shiro snaps. “Let this one go. Leave this place. I swear you will get paid.”

“You swear?” she laughs. “You give me your word when your presence is a testimony that you do not uphold it? Paladin, your word is _meaningless_. I will fulfill the terms of the contract and collect my reward. Step aside.”

“Step aside, Shiro,” Keith says and takes a few shuffling forward. His eyes are intent on his weapon, lying by Shiro's feet as if it could save him. “I’ve told you. You owe me nothing. I owe—“ he stumbles and the rest of his words are lost to a grunt as he falls to a knee.

“Listen to him, _Shiro_ ,” the leader says, her eyes like ice as she gazes down on Keith. “He's reasonable. He knows his place.”

Between a breath and the next, there's nothing left but fury in Shiro's gut.

“If you do not accept the new terms, then you’ll have to go through me.”

The leader laughs outright. “I will not kill the first defender of the empire. Although I am sure you would give me an interesting fight—” her tone shifts, a slight leer creeping below her amusement. “But no—My orders are only to kill those who bear the sign of galra.”

She raises a hand and her soldiers fall into position. There are too many of them—he won’t be able to protect Keith, not if they just try to incapacitate him. He needs to be a threat, but it's only him and his wits. Even if he called the other Paladins, they would arrive in time. His feet shift in the dirt, jostling Keith's blade.

“Step aside,” she says. “You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

“Fine,” Shiro spits and picks up Keith's sword. It’s unfamiliar in his left hand and limp—Shiro has no grasp on whatever magic it responds to, but the symbol on its hilt still glints in the sun. “There. Now I bear the sign of the galra. Go on, follow your orders.”

“What are you doing?” Keith pants and tries to stand, trying and failing until he's down on both knees. His hand shakes against his shoulder.

“What is right,” Shiro says, and raises his sword in front of him. It's awkward—he knows to fight with sword and shield. He feels naked without it. Still, he positions his left arm as if it bore the shield instead of Keith's short blade.

“You've got to be kidding me,” the leader scoffs. “He's galra scum.”

He'll kill her first. If it comes to that—he'll kill her first.

“It's okay,” Keith rasps behind him. “I've always known it would end like this.”

He can't afford to look back. The mercenaries are almost all back to their feet, amassing behind their leader, weapons at the ready.

“Me too. I've always known that I would die somewhere in the dirt,” Shiro says and hopes Keith can hear the smile in his voice. “I'm glad if it's for you.”

“Are you serious?” the leader says, watching them with undisguised curiosity. “No. No, you’re bluffing.”

“Am I?” Shiro squares his shoulders. “Try me.”

The leader tilts her head. “You’d break the peace of your empire. Over him?”

Shiro knows what Voltron showed him was only a glimpse of potential—a chance in a million. The truth hits him right in the face. Just for the chance of living just a fraction of it—he’d do much worse.

She must read it on his face and she barks out a laugh, putting her hands up in a jerky motion. Behind her, tension seeps out of out soldiers. Their weapons go down like dominos.

“You're making a mistake, Paladin,” she laughs. “But that is none of my business. All that matters is that, one way or another, I'll get what I'm owed.”

She discards Keith's crossbow. It clatters on the ground.

“You've spoken well-enough,” the leader says. “I'll give you a chance.”

“A chance?”

She grins. “You've wasted my time. It's only fair that you also waste his.” She tilts her head towards Keith. “I will not kill him. See if you can save him.”

_What are you saying?_ is Shiro means to say but a low moan interrupts his thoughts and he looks back just as Keith curls over himself and slumps face-first in the dirt.

It doesn't make sense. Keith, who'd withstood attacks by half-rotten beasts and kept on fighting. Keith, who'd shrugged off pain and fear as mere inconveniences. Shiro forgets about the mercenaries.

“I've got you,” he says and puts an arm under Keith, turning him over. His face is littered with dirt, pupils blown wide. His eyes fly over Shiro's face without truly focusing. Shiro brushes against Keith’s wound. His fingers come wet with blood and something, darker, some some sickly-sweet ichor. He brings his fingers to his nose, then his tongue, tasting the tangy mix of it, spitting out what remains on his tongue as soon as he understands the danger.

Poison.

That bolt—that damned crossbow bolt.

His hand finds Keith’s neck. His blood pulses against his palm. Weak. Sluggish.

“What did you give him?” Shiro hisses but when he looks up, the mercenaries are gone.

_No._

“You're gonna be okay,” Shiro lies, propping Keith against him. He fishes for the iron coin in his pocket, fumbling a few times before he manages to raise it to his lips, struggling for focus until the coin throbs slightly with power.

“Hunk, come to the eastern wall,” he whispers against the metal, already moist with his shaky breath. “Hurry. _Please_ , hurry.”

Keith's hand lifts up to Shiro's face. It takes a few tries before his thumb is able to trace the scar that runs across his nose. “I wish I'd never kissed you.”

Shiro catches Keith's hand and presses against his cheek.

“But you were kind and —so . ” Keith smiles—an unhappy, wretched thing. “I'm sorry—I couldn't help it.”

“Don't say that—” Shiro breathes out. He turns his head to press a long kiss to Keith's palm, his lips finding the rough, frayed cloth of Keith's gloves. “I wanted you to.”

“Nah—don't lie to me. Not now,” Keith looks dizzy, his words are slightly slurred.

“I'm not—I wouldn't,” Shiro says, panic building up beneath his breastbone as Keith's skin turns clammy and white. He presses a hand against Keith's wound, but his holy symbol lays unresponsive on his chest. Broken bones and spilled guts he can handle, but this—this is too insidious, too wide and spreading through Keith's blood, seeking his heart.

“I wish I'd never met you,” Keith whispers, and Shiro shudders as he meets Keith's eyes—Keith who's looking up at Shiro like he's never seen anything else; like he's the last thing he'll ever see. “You're not really here, huh?”

“I am,” Shiro says and clutches Keith's body against him. “Stay with me.”

 

 

 

 

 

He snarls as someone tries to pry away his fingers from Keith's wrist, lashing out with all that is left of his power—calling for thunder and hail but there's nothing left in him to give—he's poured everything he has into stopping the spread of the poison. Not enough—he knows it's enough. Keith has closed his eyes for too long—has stopped talking for even longer.

_You can't heal that well. You can't track. You can't be quiet. Tell me, Paladin, is there anything you can do well?_

He's been silent for too long and Shiro has done nothing to stop it.

“Snap out of it!”

Shiro blinks, his hands go lax and Hunk pries Keith's limp body from his hands.

“It doesn't look good,” Hunk mutters, but his hand is already moving over Keith's shoulder, the gem on his cuff glowing bright.

“We can't stay here. I don't think we'll be alone here for long,” Lance says. “Pidge, bring us back home.”

“No—” Shiro rasps.

Keith had scoffed when Shiro talked of Altea, fear barely veiled behind his eyes.

_Your princess would take one look at me and put me to death._

And she had tried—without a look, without a word or a trial, like an animal that one would lead to slaughter—and Shiro can't bring him there to die.

Keith had _trusted_ him.

“Not Altea,” Shiro whispers. “Please.”

There's a pause.

“I know where,” Pidge says and she kneels beside Shiro. Her hand comes to rest on Keith's shoulder.

Shiro nods and lets the golden light of her magic engulf them.

 

 

 

 

 

Lance takes one look at him, slouched against the wall that faces the door, and sighs, closing the door quietly behind him.

Shiro scrambles to his feet. “Any news?”

“No news,” Lance says, his hands in front of him defensively. “I just wanted to get Hunk some snacks while he works.” Lance pauses, taking more time than truly needed to take him in. The shadows under his eyes. The bloodstained shirt. He grabs Shiro's arm. “Hunk will be fine. Come on.”

“No, I should stay—”

“He's in good hands. Come on, you need some air.”

Lance drags him away. Shiro spares a last glance to the closed door, hoping for any hint of Hunk's progress. It offers nothing different than the hours he's spent staring at the dark wood. Pidge had banished him from the room almost immediately. He understands why. He knows there's still a faint tremor to his hands, something unhinged lurking just below the edge of his control.

The cold air slaps him in the face and he stumbles on the open rampart. He truly breathes in for the first time in what must be hours, coolness spreading through his lungs. He breathes out slowly. It's still early out. From the outpost, a sea of greens and rusted browns meets his eyes. There's nothing menacing in the forest today. The day is bright, reflecting on the fading greens and delicates red of the leaves in a lustrous spectacle. Fall is there—Shiro takes time to appreciate the quiet beauty of it. And it is still warm and happy, vibrant with the cries of birds. Two crows bicker loudly somewhere to his left.

“Give me a second,” Lance says and disappears in the watchtower.

It takes a few moments for Shiro to truly register where he's standing. He shuffles across the rampart.

The crossbow bolt that started it all is gone, but there's a deep groove in the post. Shiro's fingers brush against it, dislodging small splinters of wood.

It feels like decades ago when he pushed the quartermaster out of the bolt's way.

He startles when Lance pushes a rough cup into his hand. Liquid sloshes over the rim. It runs along his hand, staining the cuff of his shirt.

“You look like you needed a drink,” Lance says meaningfully and Shiro puts the cup to his lips. It's bitter, _terrible_ liquor, almost sweet on his tongue for a split second before it burns and rakes his way down his throat like acid. Exactly the type he'd expected when Keith had offered him his small, dented flask. The memory burns hotter than the liquor. Shiro brings the cup back to his mouth and takes a long swig, then a few more.

“Are you okay?” Lance asks as Shiro coughs his way through the cup. “You know you can trust Hunk with your boyfriend, don't you?”

He pauses meaningfully, inviting the banter, the denial or the easy rebuttal. Shiro turns back to the forest, knuckles white where he's clutching the cup.

“Man,” Lance sighs and leans back against the battlements, back facing the forest—imprudent, but Shiro has long learned that Lance would do anything for the sake of cool. Lance gestures meaningfully to his own cup. “It took me years for you to have a drink with me. And that guy—it took him what—two days? Two days for you to break the empire's peace.”

Shiro looks away. Still, his cheeks burn. “More like a week.”

Lance throws his head back as he laughs. The two crows take flight behind him, startled.

“This is going to get interesting, I can tell,” Lance says.

Interesting is not the word Shiro would use. He can only imagine how their actions will ripple throughout the empire. There's opportunity around the corner. There's also disaster. He knows—he has considered all outcomes, then a few more. Most of them terrible, but none of them that could affect his resolve.

Lance gives him a half-smile and turns back to his cup, sipping the vile alcohol half-mindlessly.

They settle into the silence—enough that the couple of crows fly back to their nest, cawing angrily at them. After a while, he accepts the refill Lance offers. He sips the second cup slowly, savoring each gulp until his thoughts go quieter. When Lance speaks next, he's ready.

“It's time we call Allura.”

Shiro nods.

“She's not going to be happy,” Lance continues, his voice deliberately nonchalant—Shiro knows how of to interpret it. They've been through enough together. “But she'll understand. Whatever you've dragged out of this forest, we've got your back, team leader.”

“Thanks, Lance,” Shiro says and squeezes his shoulder.

“I'll hold her off for a while,” Lance says, and throws him a smile over his shoulder.

Shiro breathes in the crisp air until the unmistakable glowing light of a portal bursts in the courtyard behind him. Allura steps out in a flash. She's wearing her armor, but her hair is loose. It flies wildly around her head disturbed by the wind and the wild magic of the portal. She sees Lance first, and her face loses some of its hardness, revealing deep lines of tension and tiredness across her handsome face. She reaches for his hands without breaking her motion. They exchange hurried words until the quartermaster comes bursting in the courtyard, takes one good look at his new guest and throws up his hands to the sky. It lasts only for a moment—the panic bleeds into obedience almost seamlessly and the quartermaster bows before his empress, following the usual customs. Lance blocks most of his forced attentions, stepping in front of Allura, giving her space.

She looks up then and her eyes find him.

What he reads there—nothing good.

Shiro squares his shoulders and goes back to guard the door.

 

 

 

 

 

Allura's footsteps are quiet as she makes her way up the stairs, even quieter as she sees him and goes to him, leaning against the wall beside him. Not quite touching, but close enough that Shiro can smell the Altean sunshine and seaside air on her clothes.

She doesn't speak. Lance would have told her enough already.

“How bad is it?” Shiro asks instead.

Allura sighs. “Bad. The mercenaries have not lost any time. They've already demanded a hefty sum to compensate for their losses. And an ungodly sum for the breach in the contract.”

Shiro considers this. “I never realized you cared about money.”

“You know that's not it,” Allura scoffs. “Money I can afford to lose. My reputation—however. The clans never trust the empire again.”

“Buy their silence then.”

Allura shakes her head. “It's too late. The news has already spread. I have called a meeting with the heads of the clans. Hopefully, I can explain what transpired and pacify them.”

“When?”

“Tonight,” Allura pauses. Shiro braces himself—he already knows what she'll say. “Shiro, I need you with me. If they see you—if they hear the truth from your mouth—”

“No,” Shiro cuts in. He can't leave—not now, not while the door remains closed, not until he can say the words he should have said from the start. “I'm sorry.”

Allura sighs again, but she doesn't look surprised.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers again. “For letting you down. For the way I acted back in Altea.”

She shakes her head again, her eyes kind. Shiro can't bear to look at them.

“What will you do?” she asks softly.

He'll do what he should have done from the start. Tell the truth. But even as the thoughts form in his head, the door opens and Hunk emerges from the doorway. He looks ashen, deep grooves under his eyes that betray his exhaustion and something else, something that makes Shiro's blood run cold. He rushes past Hunk. The room is a mess—equipment and weaponry scattered over the floor. The black rugged cloak is crumpled in a corner, and Keith—Keith is just a shadow, a limp and dark mass over the bedsheets, still clad in his dark armor and caked with mud and blood. He's utterly still—thrown over the mattress without care, like a rag doll abandoned in some darkened corner. Even as Shiro approaches, he doesn't move and there's nothing but the rush of blood in his ears as his vision funnels and swims.

“He's fine,” Pidge says beside him, her hand coming up to his bicep like a vice. “Shiro, he's _fine._ ”

“Well, I'm not,” Hunk whines, ignoring Pidge's death glare. “I'm starving.”

“How—will he—” Shiro says, struggling around each syllable. “When will he wake up?”

“I don't know,” Hunk says, leaning against the doorframe. “Could be minutes—could be days. Just be patient, he's been through a lot.”

“Come on, let's get you some food,” Pidge says and ushers Hunk out of the room. “Allura, you too.” She tosses him something just she disappears through the way. He barely manages to catch it. “The rest is up to you.”

He doesn't need to look to know what it is. The way the ruby digs into his palm is enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Watching over him is too painful—so he acts, tidying up the room, arranging for clean clothes, warm water and laundry. It's easy. Giving orders, being obeyed, like an old routine. He goes through Keith's things reverently, arranging them on the room's only table. He divests Keith of his armor, his fingers struggling with the unfamiliar knots and latches, then cleans the dirt from Keith's face to the best of his abilities, half-disappointed half-relieved that Keith does not stir even under such close attentions. Then there's nothing left and he feels calm enough to drag a chair close to the bed. Keith lies there, engulfed by a swath of blankets that could probably smother a small child. His breathing barely manages to make them move. But when Shiro retrieves Keith's limp hand, his pulse is strong and steady.

“I'm sorry,” Shiro whispers.

There's no twitch across Keith's features. He remains still, his skin chalk white, his lips dry and cracked. Shiro brings Keith's wrist to his lips, pressing a modest kiss to his skin, long enough that he feels the faint beat of Keith's blood under his mouth.

“I should have followed you.”

There's no reaction, but he wasn't expecting any.

For the first time in days, Shiro breathes out calmly.

He settles in the chair. His hand grasps Keith's hand firmly, his thumb nestled snugly across his wrist.

He sits while evening falls. He sits as a burst of light flashes through the windows, signaling Allura's departure. He sits when a new burst of light disturbs the calm light of the dawn and Allura returns.

No-one interrupts his vigil. He would have fought anyone who tried, but when Allura steps through the doorway hours later, his only reaction is to release Keith's hand. A reflex. He's been trained to be careful and not to reveal anything for too long. It's nonsense. He’s already revealed everything.

“What news?” he asks before she can speak.

She shrugs. “I have said my piece and given them time to decide. Perhaps they'll be reasonable and we'll keep the peace.” Her tone is like steel and Shiro looks up sharply, taking every inch of her—his empress. “If not, we'll have war.”

She walks around the room, slowly. Her eyes barely stops over Keith's face, but her face hardens. She halts by the table, her fingers hovering over Keith's effects, stopping over his blade. Her eyes do not leave the symbol embedded in its hilt for long seconds. “Shiro, are you sure? Is it worth it?”

Shiro says nothing, but his fingers curl back around Keith's wrist.

Allura sighs, and her eyes finally move away from the galra symbol as she approaches Shiro's side. “How is he then?” she asks.

Shiro fingers trace the thin skin of Keith's wrist until he finds the pulse. Slow and steady. “Still resting.”

Allura looks down at Keith, face carefully blank.

“Shiro, he's—”

“He's been alone his whole life,” Shiro says and his grip tightens convulsively on Keith's wrist. “I will not abandon him now. He's—”

Shiro trails off, partly because he's not quite managed to say the words out loud yet, partly because Allura gives him one of her patented pointed looks that never fails to shut him up.

She raises a sharp eyebrow at him. “He's awake.”

Shiro whirls around to find Keith’s half-open eyes. They're unfocused for a split second before Keith truly wakes and he takes a deep, heaving breath.

“Shit—I'm dead, aren't I?” Keith asks, voice barely louder than a rasp. His gaze moves sluggishly between Shiro and Allura, brow faintly creased. “This would make much more sense if I was.”

The air is sucked out of the room. Shiro chokes on nothing as he tries to formulate words.

“I will leave you alone,” Allura says, but she hesitates at the door, her hand still on the handle. “I did not— I do not regret whatever decision I’ve made in the past. It was well-meant, for the good of the empire and my people. However—for what it is worth, I did not know.”

The door clicks softly behind her.

“Was that the empress?” Keith whispers, long after Allura's footsteps have receded and can no longer be heard.

Shiro nods. “Sorry—I think she was trying to apologize.”

“Apologize,” Keith repeats faintly. “Shit— _shit_. I'm really dead then.”

Shakily, Keith pushes himself on his elbows. Shiro slips an arm under his back, helping him into a sitting position. Keith is warm but the muscles of his back tense and lock under Shiro's arm. He lets go, hand curling against the bed linens instead.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro asks, voice soft, but Keith just stares, eyes moving from Shiro's hands to his face. “Hunk wasn't sure when you would wake up. You've been through a lot.”

“Where am I?”

“The Olkarion outpost,” Shiro says. Keith's eyes dart to the window. It's open, but the curtains are closed, shifting gently with the breeze. There are no sounds. The soldiers have been stunned into silence when Pidge had transported the Paladins in a blur of light and confusion, then into suspicion when they'd gotten a good glance at what Shiro was carrying in his arms, and then finally into submission when Allura, herself, had arrived. The quartermaster had nearly burst into tears when he'd seen her. His best rooms—his own, really—had already been commandeered by Shiro. The next best rooms—well, there were none, really. Shiro has not seen a glimpse of their host since she's arrived. He suspects the man took sentry duty for himself, just to escape his unwanted guests.

Keith's eyes travel the room slowly, his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. “Am I a prisoner?”

Shiro jerks to his feet. He goes to the small dresser, where Keith's things are laid down: the leather armor, now cleaned and oiled; the belt pouch, untouched; the ragged cloak, torn and dirty—the soldier in charge of washing had taken one look at it and shaken his head, suggesting to put it out of its misery and _burn_ it, but Shiro has folded it over his arm and dismissed him.

_It probably belonged to my father_ , Keith had said, fingers reverent over the frayed edges.

Now the cloak is carefully folded next to Keith's armor and weapons. Gently, Shiro picks up the blade among the small pile of weapons they'd stripped off Keith's body.

“You are free to go,” Shiro says as he hands Keith his weapon. “But I wish you would not, at least not before you've eaten and bathed and you feel whole again.”

It's a lie. It scrapes his throat as it comes free, coating the back of his teeth with bile.

“Whole,” Keith whispers. He curls onto himself, clutching the blade against his chest. The sheet slips, revealing his stained and ripped tunic. It hangs limply from Keith's figure, showing spots of skin, still crusted with blood and grime. He's only taken care of the armor—for the rest, he's not dared.

“Bathe and dress. It will make you feel better,” Shiro says because he can bear the silence no longer. “I'll get some food.”

His hands are shaking. They should talk. He can't leave like that—like a coward again. But his body is moving ahead of his thoughts. He pushes the door open.

“Shiro—” Keith says. “Won't you—could you—stay.”

Shiro's grip tightens on the handle, relief pulsing through him like a heatwave, and he closes the door. “Of course.”

 

 

 

 

 

Keith bathes quietly behind the privacy screen. It's not much, nothing like the imperial baths that Shiro has grown so used too, but enough. There's soap, clean towels, and plenty of water, even if it is cold. Lance has even pilfered some clothes from the outpost's inventory—simple clothes, dark pants and a faded red shirt—Lance's idea of a joke really—roughly cut but clean and warm. Shiro has left them in evidence next to Keith's things, but has not commented on them. He'd rather not presume.

Water splashes behind the screen. The sounds of cloth rubbing against skin and soft puffs of breath are louder than they have any right to be.

Shiro keeps his eyes firmly on the ceiling.

When Keith steps out from behind the screen, his feet are bare. His chest is too—the red shirt hanging limply in his hand.

Shiro knows that skin. Like if it were his own. At least, he thinks he does—he might, given the chance. But now—now all he knows is that he stares for too long—pink creeps across Keith's chest and he turns towards the dresser where his belongings are laid out. Shiro's gaze finds the ceiling again.

“You must have a lot of questions,” Shiro tries.

Keith shrugs, he's put on the red shirt, the color striking against the black of his hair, but he's still struggling to fasten his belt bag around his waist. Enough. _Enough_. Shiro closes the distance between them, snatching the belt from Keith's shaking fingers. Keith lets it go without fighting. Up close, there's no hiding how hard Keith is breathing.

“I don't—I don't understand. What am I—How did you find me?”

Shiro's hand lifts to his chest, pulling out the think silver chain from under his shirt. His medallion hangs there and next to it, the ruby ring gleams in the soft light. Slowly, he opens the clasp of the heavy chain and lets the ring falls into his palm.

“It is yours,” Shiro says as he hands Keith's the ring of the Red Paladin— _his_ ring. “If you want it.”

Slowly, Keith reaches out and the world shifts. Afternoon light pours in the sacred hall, illuminating the five pillars of white marble. On each of them, a glass case rests on a colorful brocade, heavily embroidered with protective spells and holy enchantments. There's Pidge and Hunk, leaning against two pillars, covered in green and gold. There's Lance, one chin in his hand, elbow resting on the blue cloth adorning the far-right pillar.

Their team. Their family.

There's Shiro himself, standing tall, arms crossed in front of the centerfold pillar, draped in black. He's smiling. Keith stands in front of the last pillar, no longer unclaimed. The Paladins of Voltron, united at last.

The first image he saw, sharper and more vivid than ever, almost tangible—but when Shiro comes back to himself, Keith is looking down at the trinket in his hand with a pained smile.

“Huh. I understand now.”

“I'm sorry,” Shiro says in a rush. “I should have told you earlier. I was afraid—”

“So that's it. You just wanted another soldier in your army, fighting for your god,” Keith cuts in and his voice breaks on an ugly laugh. “You must be quite desperate if you're ready to stoop down to the likes of me.”

“Don't say that. You're worth more than that. You're worth—”

“It that why you came back?” Keith snaps. “Is that why I'm here?”

Shiro swallows. “Yes”

But it's a lie. _It's a lie._

Keith laughs again, bitterness seeping through each crack of it, and turns back to the table, slamming the ring on the rough tabletop. His fingers shake as he opens a compartment of his belt bag. The contents spill over the table, small pouches of juniper bouncing around. Keith's fingers chase after them.

“Don’t—” Shiro blurts out, catching Keith’s hand before he can break the small pouch under Shiro's nose. His breath comes in short puffs—pushed by something wild growing behind his breastbone. “That's not all there is. I'm lying. You know I am.”

“Why?” Keith says, and the small pouch of powder falls to the ground, bouncing a few times before it disappears under the dresser. “Why now? What do you have to lose?”

Everything—he has everything to lose. Shiro has not asked for many things in his lifetime, and now that he's found what he wants to keep, the words don't come.

“Just say it—” Keith rasps, his eyes bright and wide. “Don't ask me to say more. I've already revealed everything.”

Has he? Shiro had been hurt and bleeding as he'd watched Keith walk away across the river, but then—

Shiro swallows. “So have I.”

Keith's hold on his fingers tighten, enough to hurt. “You pushed me away.”

Shiro ducks his head and takes a moment to clear his throat. His hand shifts around Keith's fingers. He's never seen Keith's hand without the gloves. His knuckles are raw and red, the skin cracked by the harsh weather. Carefully, his thumb runs over them, stroking the angry skin.

“You can't begrudge me for wanting you clean and warm and _safe_ ,” Shiro says. “For wanting you to know that you are not alone and unwanted before I take you to my bed.”

Red blooms across Keith's cheeks. It makes Shiro sway forward until there's barely a breath between them, loaded, almost electric.

“But more than that—” Shiro stutters. “I know you've been looking for your family, but—even if you haven't found them yet, there's a place for you here. You've found us—you've found me.”

_Please, let it be enough._ _Please._

Keith says nothing—his eyes wide and unmoving on Shiro.

“I'm sorry—I thought you knew,” Shiro says, but it is not quite the truth. “I hoped you understood.”

Keith shakes his head. “I don't. Tell me.”

“If I knew—” Shiro breaks off. He has to lick his dry lips, focus on words despite the rushing sounds flooding his ears. So close, Keith’s warmth and smell are almost tangible, like fields of energy that force his hands to cup Keith’s cheeks. Soft, but burning under his palm. “If it were welcome—If I knew—”

“You know," Keith says, a challenge barely more than an plea. His hands lift up, one around Shiro's neck, hot like a brand, the other on Shiro's chest where it covers the Black Paladin's holy symbol—and there's nothing, no bursts of what it should be. Voltron is silent between them, leaving the paths of their lives as it should be. Theirs. Open. Terrifying but full of opportunity.

Shiro smiles.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! It took longer than I expected to get it done (pfiou.. i didn't think it would reach more than 40k.. a marathon fic after all), but I'm so happy I did--get it done. If you enjoyed it, please let me know, share the love, god knows I've gushed over my boys' storyline for a few months now. I'm happy with the result and tt's helped me cope with a lot of stuff, I hope it brought you some joy too!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my love to song to i) Voltron and Sheith, which stole my heart in episode 1 where Keith rescues Shiro and goes all uwu. How am i supposed to fucking resist, ii) matt mercer, this is my love song to you, and iii) ABBA, i picked up this work just after watching Mamma Mia! Here we go again, and let me tell you, this is a waterloo scenario right there.


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